Tami Neilson has the perfect big-hearted voice for classic Rockarolla, and she brings along New Zealand’s legendary original Rock Chick Dinah Lee and a great Girl Group tribute act, the Up-Doos.
Diane Jacobs was born in Christchurch and was part of a thriving and definitive music scene there. Canterbury continues that tradition to this day.
Do the Blue Beat was dominating music radio and paired well with another breakthrough Ska song of that time, Millie Small’s My Boy Lollipop (which launched Chris Blackwell’s Island Records).
There is a husk to Lee’s voice, and she has lost some of her vocal power. But passion, phrasing and soul are not diminished. Sounds a little like Rod the Mod Stewart these days.
The chicky chicky chang chang/ We do it in the morning/ And in de nighttime too. Not quite as explicit a double-entendre as Lollipop. Both are joyous rhythmic throb classics.
Lee has just turned eighty and her first hit song Don’t You Know, Yokomo is close to sixty years old. A Huey Piano Smith classic from New Orleans and the gumbo off-beat accented dance music which is also the origin of Ska.
This could be her finest song and she gives it a good belt. She did begin with Jackie Wilson’s (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher just prior. To get the motor revving.
Another Wilson classic, Reet Petite, does not have the necessary volume but she manages a high note at the end.
In the Midnight Hour, written by Wilson Pickett and Steve Cropper, and Lee gets into some jazz phrasing and gospel stylings as the horns almost steal the song.
Lee has the sound of Dame Edna Everidge when she speaks, with a similar sly sense of humour.
She was known as the Queen of Mod in 1964, which was also when Beatlemania hit. She broke through with her fashion statements and her fier
She entertained troops in Viet Nam, and she was a body builder in her thirties. There was no one comparable to her especially in terms of her success.
She is joined by Tami Neilson to sing a tribute to Max Merritt and the Meteors’ great song Slipping Away. She played extensively with them and was mentored by Merritt early in her career.
Tami Neilson
Canadian born Tamara Tami Neilson is of course New Zealand’s reigning Queen of Country. That includes Rock’n’roll now with this tour, of which this is the final outing. Genres which have always been intertwined in her songwriting and performance.
She’s a powerhouse diva in the fashion of a Big Mama Thornton or an Etta James.
Big Boss Mama and Ain’t My Job is female braggadocio to match any cock-strutting male Blues shouter or modern-day Rapper. There is some nasty and tasty guitar note-bending from Adams.
Neilson is brash about promoting woman’s presence in an industry which has been heavily misogynistic for too long. She talks about the pioneering spirit of Dinah Lee in levering this door open.
There is still a long way to go according to Tami. She does mention the recent fate of Jann Wenner. Dropped from the Rock’n’roll Hall of Fame board after recent comments diminishing women and black artists’ contributions.
There is bite and ferocious passion to her performance tonight.
Walk (Back to Your Arms) has sultry R’n’B phrasing with a little venom. Enhanced by Otis Rush style guitar riffs.
A highlight is a version of Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s Didn’t It Rain. This is where Black Gospel and R’n’B are intertwined in a double helix like DNA to produce Rock’n’roll.
Hound Dog is performed in the manner that Big Mama Thornton laid it down. A slow tempo and all steamy sex. You make me weep and moan/ You made me feel so blue. Pretty much the slow grinding hip shake, baby! A stellar slide guitar which reminds me of the best of Duane Allman.
Neilson does talk about Elvis, in relation to that song, as well as Rosetta Tharpe and Wanda Jackson, whose Hard Headed Woman she also covers tonight.
Presley benefitted from the influence of all those women. Hound Dog has been cited repeatedly as an example of the financial appropriation of black music by white artists.
Reality is more nuanced. The song was written by two white upper middle class Jewish songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, and their fantasized version of the black experience. They wrote the song for Thornton and went on to write similar classics for the Coasters and many other artists black and white.
Neilson is in fine and feisty form tonight. Woo Hoo is clever and sounds like a hillbilly proto rap that George Jones started out with in the Fifties. Adams helps on vocals.
The extended family of children are brought on stage for a song called Queenie. Neilson’s as well as the other players. Risky but it’s a winner as the song is all drums and percussion with the same tribal rhythm as Iko Iko.
The Up-Doos
The Up-Doos are Liv Tennet, Aria Jones and Esther Stephens.
They are a Girl Group tribute band, and they do classic songs from the late Fifties to early Sixties faithfully. Enough to warm the heart of an obsessive like me.
This is where the one-man horn section of Scholes elevates this music. On These Boots Are Made for Walking, he plays tuba and trumpet. The singers channel the Supremes version. Adams guitar comes on like James Burton and there is a great walking bass.
You Can Have Him/Her, originally by Roy Hamilton is a highlight with their unison vocals. The bass guitar plays like the Sixties Stax house band.
It’s all great Rock’n’roll and Dinah Lee promised to do it again in ten years’ time. Been a long time since I did the Stroll!
Rev Orange Peel
Photography by Leonie Moreland
Dinah Lee
The Up-Doos
