Review: The Civil Wars @ Paramount Theatre

The Civil Wars @ Paramount Theatre – January 19

“Delicate” can be a dirty word; a few shades in the wrong direction and your sound is too quaint, or too cutesy, or too precious, or too twee, or so ethereal as to be vapor. So you have to hand it to Joy Williams and John Paul White, the singing, strumming duo that comprise The Civil Wars. They lean delicate and almost effortlessly find that sweet spot where gentle meets rich, holding steady in that spot with a combination of slightly mischievous personality, rock-solid chemistry, sturdy songwriting and that most reliable of musician crowd-slayers: the unimpeachably beautiful male-female vocal harmony.

I mean, wow. You hear these two flex their voices over song after song of longing – sometimes defiant, sometimes pensive, sometimes tragic – and your mind melts away into their narratives, hooked to every vocal cadence and gently nudged by the strum of White’s guitar or, on occasion, the twinkle of Williams’ keyboard.

They earned due acclaim for 2011’s Barton Hollow and its best-known song Poison and Wine, but live the experience goes well beyond a pleasant singer-songwriter listen with admirable depth. So it was when I found myself in Austin, shoulder to shoulder with a rapt and definitely sold-out crowd at the historic Paramount Theatre, watching this magic transpire. We were eating out of their hands by the second song, and through about 90 minutes and the duo’s stock setlist of Barton Hollow tunes and a cover or three, we were transported. It helps that Williams and White don’t take themselves too seriously – they were game for a couple of Freebird jokes and some raunchy ribbing – and you get the sense they enjoy doing this as a performing folk duo playing to kindly lubricated club and theater crowds, not as performance artists doing recital in a concert hall.

Tight as their harmonies and gentle arrangements are, they’re loose and relaxed as performers. They have fun. They keep selling what they do, long after you’ve bought in, knowing you can always listen deeper. If there’s a drawback it’s that their originals tend to blend together with similar themes. After a few in a row you’re conditioned to the denseness of the harmonies with the acoustic accompaniment, so that when they toss in a variable – White switched to electric guitar about halfway through the set – it’s a jolt. But what an absorbing, nourishing show: full readings of all the Barton material, and the duo’s customary covers of Smashing Pumpkins (Disarm – whoa), Leonard Cohen (Dance Me to the End of Love – well chosen) and Michael Jackson (Billie Jean – too gimmicky for my palate).

The Civil Wars – Disarm

The opening act doesn’t have to be part of the fullness of any great concert, but it certainly helps, and in this case, it was another preternaturally talented harmony group you’re going to be hearing a lot about this year: The Staves. Three lovely ladies – sisters, no less — from Watford, U.K., covering three distinct harmony layers and drawing on a wealth of folk heritage to arrive at a vibe somewhere between the Indigo Girls, Joni Mitchell, Laurel Canyon, and the brittle, more tragic-sounding strains of chilly English folk. Though leavened by warmth, their songs are a bit dreamier than the Civil Wars’, and often darker. They have an album on the way – said to be produced by father-and-son Glyn and Ethan Johns – but standout songs like Icarus and Mexico don’t need any more fleshing out. Guitar and ukulele were there to group the rhythms; the voices carry the whole thing like conjurers from a far off place.

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