Marissa Mulder
I’ll Follow the Sun:
The Songs of John Lennon & Paul McCartney
Feinstein’s 54/Below, NYC, May 30, 2019
Reviewed by Alix Cohen for Cabaret Scenes
Wrangling the songs of John Lennon and Paul McCartney into a cohesive cabaret show is a daunting prospect. Which songs, which stories, how does one create worthy accompaniment with just a few musicians? Marissa Mulder has conquered the first two of these issues; MD/pianist Jon Weber, ably aided and abetted by Mike Rosengarten and Ritt Henn (guitar, bass, back-up vocals) conquered the third.
Mulder is invested. When she heard her parents’ Beatles records, the songs landed differently than they did to those of us who grew up during the era. I’ll Follow the Sun brings unexpected freshness to iconic material. The vocalist helps us reconsider lyrics and sentiments long taken for granted. Three musicians playing deeply textured arrangements sound like at least an eight-piece band.
We learn how John and Paul met and connected at a garden festival in 1957. They were respectively 16 and 15. Paul apparently admired John’s charisma. Anecdotes are few and well placed, often including quotes. (George Harrison joined the band in 1958; Ringo Starr not until 1962.)
A few numbers in, Mulder jumps to the group’s 1968 visit to India where they studied under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. (One song from the interim might have helped the continuity.) The trip yielded some 48 new songs. John cited “Across the Universe” as his best lyric because “the words stand alone. You could pick it up on a piece of paper and read it as a poem.” With palms on her thighs, the vocalist immerses herself in a cloud of meditative visions: “Jai Guru Deva, Om/Nothing’s gonna change my world” she sings, making the lyric pristine and incantory.
“I’m So Tired” is tied to John’s long-distance communication with Yoko Ono. Beginning with only a resonant bass, the song arrives weighted, deeply breathed. Mulder stretches as if the air around her grows soporific; defined meter shifts are beautifully handled.
“Dear Prudence” was John’s effort to get Mia Farrow’s little sister out of her room at the ashram. It sounds different in the present context. Mulder’s coaxing bubbles up a wellspring of warm positivity. Between verses she’s completely still; anyone would come out.
The performer was long obsessed with “Strawberry Fields” before learning it was the name of an orphanage John could see from his home. Apparently he scaled a fence and played with the kids. “It’s anywhere you want to go,” he’s quoted as saying. Lead by lustrous piano, the number is hypnotic. “That was John’s childhood, pretty dark. This was Paul’s” introduces “Penny Lane.” Mulder’s eyes go wide, her face lights up. Animated and matey, she strolls with the microphone, connecting with her audience. (She’s particularly good at this.) “He likes to keep his fire engine clean (she laughs),/It’s a clean machine.” Back-up vocals are just right.; the entire band is grinning.
The origin of “Eleanor Rigby” is shared, its lyric delivered with gravity. “Blackbird,” we learn next, was written by Paul about civil rights in the U.S. Soft piano chords occasionally flutter, the bass feels stroked, the vocal shimmers. “I Want to Hold Your Hand” is flirty, mischievous. Any man in the audience she hasn’t yet seduced surely falls here.
John wrote “Julia” for the young mother he was taken from growing up and with whom he at last reconciled only to have her die in an accident. Mulder has tears in her eyes as she relates history. The song is (now) immensely touching. Part of what makes this artist unique (and brave) is her lack of artifice.
Also affecting is the unfamiliar “Here Today,” written by Paul for John after their relationship mended. “What about the night we cried?/Because there wasn’t any reason/
Left to keep it all inside.” The guitar is poignant; Mulder’s vocal is aptly chesty.
“If you want to make change you have to see it first,” Mulder quotes John. Her performance of “Imagine” is tender and hopeful. There’s an innate “please” in every phrase. We close with a story about Paul, John, and John’s son, Julian. “Hey Jude” she sings buoyantly. “Nah nah nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey Jude,” we reply.
This is a vocalist who presents the essential nature of songs along with her merry band of top flight musicians.
Marissa Mulder will repeat the show at Feinstein’s/54 Below on June 13, at 9:30