“We’re playing music for old people tonight,” soulful singer Lalah Hathaway proclaimed to the crowd during the second set of her two-show, one night engagement at the Lumiere Theatre Saturday night.
Three songs in and her words hit seemed to hit the spot much like her angelic, effortless contralto vocals.
The audience sang and swooned as part of her personal amen ensemble when she put her own music to the side for a while and went into a medley of slow jam classics that included Anita Baker’s “Angel,” Earth Wind and Fire’s “Would You Mind,” and The Gap Band’s “Yearning For Your Love.”
But it would be an endearing one-song tribute to her father – St. Louis’ own Donny Hathaway – that would bring them to their knees. Lalah inherited his vocal DNA and made use of it all with her hauntingly familiar rendition of “A Song For You.”
She captured every nuance and the lingering vocal runs that have had her father listed among the most underrated soul performers in history for more than 40 years – and a legacy that has endured beyond his untimely death in 1979.
Lalah has been an established artist in her own right for nearly 25 years. She burst on the scene with her self-titled album in 1990 that spawned moderate R&B hits “Heaven Knows,” Baby Don’t Cry,” “Something” and “I’m Coming Back.”
Like her father, Lalah remains underrated among her peers. Also like her father, her talent as a vocalist is undeniable and unmatched.
Even though fans that came hoping for an in-depth medley of Donny Hathaway classics would leave sorely disappointed, there was no way they could disapprove of her performance Saturday night.
Between her own vocal improvisations and band solos, she created a show for music lovers – old school music lovers in particular – as she continued to make good on her aforementioned statement.
A cover of the cover “Forever, For Always, For Love”, made famous by Luther Vandross, had the audience shouting praises while serving as an impromptu backing chorus.
Lalah is one of the few, that could do Luther justice – and the crowd was not shy about voicing their content with her version.
She also took a stroll down her own musical memory lane with an extra soulful, gently paced performance of “I’m Coming Back.”
She and her band made making live music look so easy. It was a concert experience that true music lovers will cherish.
If there were any downsides among Saturday’s show it would be that it simply wasn’t long enough and that she didn’t spend more time revisiting her father’s music.
Although fans surely appreciated and enjoyed her encore that featured a medley of music by Michael Jackson (with a Whitney Houston selection thrown in), using that space to pay homage to her father in his hometown – as one of a select few vocalists who could actually pull it off – would have been much more appropriate.