Karen Ponzio Photos
Shandy Lawson.
A chair and a guitar. A table holding an old-fashioned radio. A vase full of purple flowers. A teacup and saucer. Was this a scene from an oft-told tale or real life? At Best Video on Saturday, it was the setting for “Stories: An Evening with Shandy Lawson,” in which the New Haven-based singer-songwriter shared a collection of songs that offered a bit of fiction, a bite of truth, and a tasty twist on each.
Lawson has been a part of the New Haven music scene for over 20 years, most recently as part of The Bargain, though he has continued to release solo material as well. In the programs placed on each seat of the venue, Lawson explained that he had songs that were “loud and fast … made to cut through the noise and chatter. Bar bangers. Workhorses.” But there were also the “other songs,” the ones he has “spent the most time writing, and they’re the ones I’m generally most proud of.”
Those “ballads and stories” would be shared on this evening, and were listed in the program along with which of Lawson’s albums they came from. Lawson — who, along with being a musician and novelist, is also a visual artist — created the watercolor-kissed drawings on the front and back of that program.
The program for the evening.
Frank Critelli, Lawson’s bandmate in The Bargain and longtime friend, came forward and introduced him as “one of the great writers.”
“His songs tell stories naturally,” added Critelli.
As Critelli made his way back to his seat and the lights dimmed, Lawson leaned over to turn the radio on. Pieces of two songs came through one after the other, the first by the late James Velvet and the second by the late Dave Hogan. As the radio sounds settled into background instrumentals, Lawson took to his chair and guitar for the first song, “Anastasia,” which he later said was “not a true story.”
“None of these are, but one is,” he added with a smile. “I’ll leave it up to you to guess.”
Lawson offered up a 14-song set with talking in between, sometimes giving more commentary than background. Each song built upon the last quite naturally, as Critelli had said, so even if the song may not have been a literal account of a life, Lawson gave the character he was writing about enough vitality to make the listener care about what happened to them all in the span of less than five minutes.
The third song ended up being a sequel to the second. “Come On, Katy” built upon an experience Lawson had meeting two people at the now defunct Elm City Java when they wandered in for free cake during a music marathon called the Javathon, and the woman sang along to songs louder than everyone else. Lawson named her Katy, and gave her a new experience.
For the next song, called “Passenger Side,” Lawson sent Katy down south “to get out of the cold” because he himself hated the cold. The sound of ocean waves and birds singing accompanied the sweet road song courtesy of audio engineer Hannah Jacobson, who deftly provided all the accompanying sound.
“You know I’m a man who never counts on luck, everything that we need’s in the cab of this truck, gotta couple of smokes, some songs for the ride, and my angel of mercy on the passenger side,” sang Lawson.
“Blue Widow” saw Larson singing about a mortuary worker who “had not known romance since Catherine the Typist, 1982.” The song finds him meeting a certain woman that changes all of that even though it does not last, because, as Lawson sings, “all things worth keeping soon wither and fade.” With a turn of phrase as nimble as his guitar work, Lawson guided the audience, and that mortician, through a wealth of emotions.
Songs like “The Invasion of Chelsea,” which Lawson said was about “the media, small town politics, and Chevrolets” elicited smiles as he sang about a town capitalizing on an oil stain in the shape of the Virgin Mary, where binoculars sold for five dollars were “guaranteed to provide immaculate perception.”
He got into heavier subjects, like war, with the song “Danny’s Papers,” and a man who blows himself up in “Elias the Blaster.” He followed that one up with its sequel, “309,” which he wrote only two months ago and had not recorded yet. You can hear that one in the following video. As with Katy and her man, it seemed Lawson still had Elias on his mind. The audience was grateful to hear more as well.
The cast of characters continued with the painter in “Purple Lilies,” who exclaimed repeatedly “I’ll paint my sky any way I like,” and “The Ninth Cup,” which Lawson said was “a revenge beyond the grave song” that gave us a couple who were having a bit of an issue with infidelity that got more than a bit out of hand. Even Critelli became one of the characters in a song called “Weekend’s Work” — yes, this was the one that really happened, folks — as Lawson sang joyfully of their escapades with an occasional police siren playing in the background.
A man who once fought Joe Lewis was the focus of “Detroit,” though the touching song was about way more than just that.
“It’s not about the battles you won, it’s who’s on the mat when the fighting is done,” sang Lawson.
The night was to end with Lawson’s spirited version of an old English folk song called “The Fox,” but Critelli asked him to do one more. Lawson said this encore was also not his song, but was written by Shel Silverstein.
“It’s not ‘A Boy Named Sue,’” he added, saying the song was “best brought to life by Bobby Bare.” That song ended up being “The Winner,” a tale of two men that added to the charm of the evening, driving home how easily Lawson had welcomed us into his world with comfort and camaraderie. The torrential rain may have kept some people away, but those who braved the storm had their own story to tell.
