Valentine's Day with Chris DuBose at Johnny D's...

(Chris DuBose is presently retired from teaching English and coaching hoops, which allows him to roam the Northeast attending Crimson hoops, visiting offspring and sampling music events. He offers his Valentine's Day experience at Johnny D's in Somerville.)

Kelly Willis and Bruce Robison played Johnny D’s on Valentine’s Day to an audience that enjoyed their valentine gift: harmonies and rockabilly both. Robison, his head barely fitting under the low ceiling, took the lead in the driving (“truckin’ “) songs he loves, while Willis told of abandoned love and lovers in the her songs. They produced a romantic sound from a married couple who, for the first time, after lengthy solo careers, are working together, having produced their first duo album, now supporting that release with a national tour. They offer a solid, seasoned C & W sound comprised of their own guitars, a stand-up bass, a lap-steel, and an unobtrusive drum set. Robison’s voice is the stronger of the two, whether he is taking the lead or supporting his wife with his easy harmonies. This tour will finally bring attention to the under-appreciated careers of these Texans who have learned that they might just be better together than separate, a realization that most married couples make eventually.

I am also attaching a poem that I wrote, inspired by the show. Just a little artistic expression. I think the poem builds nicely.

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The slim singer gently approaches the front of the stage

Her guitar strap riding lightly on her left shoulder

Her squinting eyes probing the darkened tables of Johnny D’s,

Settling in when she reaches the bridge to those tables,

The register of nuance and ache in her voice,

Mounted on its slender stick of light steel

The microphone.

Seated at those tables, finishing their jambalaya and burgers,

Their heads rising from their plates,

Couples and friends anticipate her nuanced sound,

Ears attuned to the speakers mounted in the club’s corners,

Speakers wizened and stained with age and neglect.

And then the first note, a probing Aminor

Tempered by her husband’s delayed, complementary D,

The two voices dancing together in a breath-taking ballet

That chases away the patrons’ thoughts of the mundane,

Replacing them with an eager anticipation of an emotion

That transcends both the sound system and the club,

An emotion that resonates with a truth

Unrealized by the diners

Until they they hear it,

A truth implied in cadence and intonation and volume,

An ineffable truth

Offered as a gift to her fawning audience

As she leans in to the mike tenderly

Her lips open, straining,

In a gesture and a passion like

A lover’s kiss.