Larry and Teresa at City Winery

Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams just released a new album (All This Time) and are touring behind it.  We caught them on Tuesday, April 16 at City Winery Boston.

The North Station area was crawling with Bruins fans attending their last regular season game, but we were able to get a reservation at Bodega Canal, and met Dave for a nice Mexican dinner in their really poorly lighted loft.  Walked around a bit, it was a lovely early Spring day in Boston, and then made our way to our seats in the cramped City Winery.  The room was only a quarter full but we were all crammed into the first sets of tables.

Pete Muller and the Kindred Souls opened and did not impress.  I didn't hear any good hooks in his poppy songs, drummer Andy Mack was pretty good, but Muller on electric piano and fiddler Martha McDonnell did not shine.

But they ended and then Larry and Teresa came on with Justin Guip on drums and new bass player, Brandon Morrison.  Teresa told us they were going to pretty much play the entirety of the new album, they lit right into it, and the level of musicianship went right up to the roof.  Don't know why they even had an opener.

They opened with the first two tracks on the record, Desert Island Dreams, and All This Time, which are both great songs.  Then they changed the order around a bit, but ended up covering the whole record.  A highlight was Larry switching from Stratocaster to acoustic for his ballad, A Little Better.  They also mixed in Larry's impresario take on Duke Ellington's Caravan, the title song from their first Grammy award winner with Levon Helm, Dirt Farmer, and the absolutely excellent song from their second record, When I Stop Loving You.

Teresa was recovering from a cold and so was holding back a bit, but even when she's holding back she's an incredible singer.  And Larry more than made up for any shortcomings with his vocals and most of all his guitar work, which is just astounding.  It's so much fun to sit right in front of a guitarist that good and see such brilliant fretwork.  He picked up the fiddle for one song, and his left hand is big enough to totally encompass a fiddle's neck.  Guip was as outstanding as always, and Morrison was surprisingly good also.

Not a long set, and then they came out for a short encore.  Those of us who were there were knowledgeable L&T fans, and many people shouted requests.  But Larry said that they had to be a bit protective of Teresa's voice, and then lit into another incredible guitar-driven song, Big River.  Well, it was guitar-driven the way he played it, just amazingly nimble fingers, and he converted that simple Johnny Cash song into an epic, the way the Dead always did, but arguably even more rocking.

Short walk back to the Haymarket Parking Garage, and then a quick trip home.  City Winery is not my favorite place to say the least, but we've seen some great shows there.