Marcia Ball at The Kessler Theater

Marcia Ball signing CDs at The Kessler.

Marcia Ball

The Kessler Theater

Dallas, TX

April 10, 2015

Marcia Ball opened up her concert with the song T-Bone Shuffle. How appropriate! The concert was being held at The Kessler Theater in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas where T-Bone Walker grew up.

Let your hair down, baby

Let’s have a natural ball

If you don’t rock and roll

You won’t have no fun at all.

Marcia, playing keyboard, allowed for a solo by tenor sax Eric Bernhardt, and that was followed by a guitar solo by Michael Schermer.

She quickly went into a Louisiana blues piano and the lyrics revealed the song to be Red Beans. It is a clever song that goes “I got my red beans cooking, when it’s done I’m gonna get me some.” But it is soon revealed that she is not singing about red beans at all, but about a Louisiana man!

She then rolled into a slow blues, Just Kiss Me. This song revealed Marcia Ball to be one of the most soulful performers out there today. It was as if the capacity crowd was transported to an old dusty Baptist church somewhere in Texas (where Marcia was born) or Louisiana (where she grew up).

During the song, the band lowered and gave way to a B.B. King-influenced solo by Michael Schermer. Schermer toyed with audience picking up the pace and then slowing down, picking up the the audience and then putting it back down.

Drummer Damien Llanes opened up the next song Like No Tomorrow from her latest The Tattoed Lady and the Alligator Man. Anyone who has been 18, could appreciate the chorus:

We came to party

Like there’s no tomorrow

Let’s get it started

Before the sun goes down

We gonna play a little music

Come on I’ll show you how to do it

Kick off your shoes

Let’s go to town.

The Kessler is an historic venue and it had the feeling of a gritty high school gymnasium. It is a good place to see a concert because all the seats are close and have a good view. The floor was full, and so was the balcony with comfortable chairs. More people stood along the wall on the left-hand side.

Marcia Ball and her band – guitar Michael Schermer, drums Damien Llanes, bass Don Bennett, tenor sax Eric Bernhardt, background singer Shelley King – were back on the road after taking a two-month break. She was wearing a red top, which must be her favorite color because she is often photographed in red. But, she said, she had a hard time choosing her outfit because it is hard to remember what she wore the last time she was at the Kessler.

There is a documentary out there that captures piano legend the late Pinetop Perkins and Marcia Ball both playing the same piano at once – Pinetop on the left, Marcia on the right. That picture is fitting because it is that right hand of Marcia Ball that dominated the night at The Kessler!