Audience Review, Kansas City, April 7th, Westport Coffee House Theater

BY Bill Pryor, http://ravefilmskc.blogspot.com/
Rants from RAVE
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Lizzie West and the Tumbleweed Cabaret: It's a Movement
Last night I was among the fortunate few who got to see the Tumbleweed Cabaret in an early form before it gets refined and goes to an off-Broadway venue in Manhattan by the middle of next year.

I've talked about Lizzie West before, and here's a link to an old post if you'd like to check it out. Here's a link to Lizzie's web site, which you most definitely should check out.

You won't find anything up on her site yet about the Tumbleweed Cabaret (at least I didn't see anything). What you need to do if you can't wait for the New York version is to watch her schedule and go to Columbia, MO, or to Kansas City and see it. It'll be worth the trip. First of all, she is one fine musician and so is the White Buffalo, also known as Baba Buffalo. He has a regular name but I can't remember it, but Buffalo is good enough for me. The thing about Baba and Lizzie is that on their own, each one is a really, really good musician.

Together, they're magic.

I wish I had the words to all the extra verses she did for "This Land Is Your Land." All I can say is that Woodie Guthrie arose from his grave last night and high-fived the universe and danced till dawn with the good spirits, proud that in this day and age somebody paid attention. I don't remember if it was Woody or Pete Seeger who said it first, but both of them have talked about how folk music is built upon the original, how new musicians add their new thing to the old things. Lizzie has done Woody proud. "...from the high oil prices, to the low wage earners..." That's not the exact line, but you get the idea.

One audience member who drove a hundred miles for the event said, "It's not a show--it's a movement." He's right. And that brings up another Guthrie reference, this time Arlo. If I may quote this paragraph from "Alice's Restaurant":

"...You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin' a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said fifty people a day walking in singin' a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may think it's a movement."

Arlo, of course, was singing about the Vietnam era draft. Lizzie is singing about our entire universe, and it is inspirational. I walked out of the Westport Coffee House Theater last night thinking that I've seen the beginning of a real movement...and maybe there is, after all, hope.