Lisa Gray photo
Buffalo Nichols at Cafe 9.
Saturday night was a great night for blues. As rain pattered on the windows of Cafe Nine on the corner of Crown and State Streets in New Haven, a small and diverse crowd of music lovers sipped beers and munched pretzels as they listened to Buffalo Nichols give a lesson in the music of musicians like Robert Johnson and B.B. King. That lesson, in time, made the joint jump, with a few couples two-stepping in front of the stage.
If you’ve never been to Cafe Nine, you are doing yourself a disservice. It is one of the diviest bars in town where the lights are low, the ceiling is tin, and the walls are brick and lined with posters from past shows and artwork you might find in your grandma’s parlor or attic.
These walls have absorbed the sound from many a show. My friends and I used to hang out at Cafe Nine to dance to bands pumping everything from punk rock to hip hop, and not much has changed since those days in the early ’80s when we first discovered this gem.
As I walked in, Nichols and his band — drummer Mathew Wilson and bassist Selene Saint-Aime — both accomplished musicians in their own right, were tuning up and getting ready for an hour and a half set that had the crowd on its feet swaying to the beat by the end of the night.
Nichols took the stage in his bucket hat and shades, black jeans and combat boots, looking every bit of a new-age blues man. He stepped up to the mic for his first song, and his gravelly smooth voice melded with the twang from his steel guitar. Wilson and Saint-Aime joined in to create that syncopated somber tone and backbeat that helps make the blues the blues.
Before beginning his next song, Nichols changed guitars, and after a little finagling with the sound, jumped into a hauntingly beautiful tune that showcased his chops on the axe. His fingering was precise and dizzying, his sound stirringly soulful, as he told a story of loneliness and a longing for home.
This dude switched axes like Beyonce changes outfits. From acoustic to electric to steel, his collection was pretty impressive. One was reminiscent of Prince’s white beauty with its molded body and curlicues. What stood out most for me, though, was the storytelling. Blues tells tales of angst and woe, love and loss, and Nichols’ lyrics kept up with that tradition.
“I wasn’t gonna play this song, but I feel like being sad,” he said at one point, before easing into a tune he told us was about those “pesky memories that haunt you after death.”
His banter with the crowd was both funny and self-deprecating. When one slightly drunk patron called out, “I love you,” Nichols responded, “That’s not possible, you don’t know me.” We all laughed, except for the guy who kind of grinned as Nichols and his band began a tune with a rockabilly vibe that he said was a new song, not on any album. He also sang one, “in the style of Muddy Waters” and it transported us to a juke joint on the bayou with its twists and slides, its bump and repetition. This was hip swinging music, and swing hips it did.
Halfway through the set Nichols performed an unreleased song, “The Broken Heart of America.” This particular song resonated because it was a blues about the violence and hate Black people endure and have endured in this country for generations. The song also speaks to the disillusionment and distrust so many Black folks feel as Americans. “I won’t look in your eyes / ‘cause you’ll only tell me lies. / The broken heart of America,” he sang.