*On Friday, March 2nd, I moseyed on over to the Hotel Café in Hollywood, to check out Austin, TX born guitarist Jackie Venson. I hadn’t heard of Ms. Venson, but when I decided to go see her, I googled her to get a feel for her music. I listened to a few songs and was ready to go.
To say the Hotel Café is a small intimate venue, would be quite accurate. It is not much bigger than a decent sized living room. The stage and bar takes up over 50% of the space and there are about six tables around the stage. Suffice it to say, most patrons stand up. Luckily I got a seat and settled in for what turned out to feel more like a jam session than a concert.
I knew Jackie was a guitar player beforehand, but BOY is she a guitar player. I haven’t seen many female guitarists, so when I saw Jackie and heard her play, I immediately thought of A Taste of Honey, you know, “Get Down, Boogie Oogie Oogie?” Janice Marie Johnson and Hazel Payne … yes, them. They could get down and so can Jackie. The lady definitely has skills; a music ability she no doubt inherited from her father, Andrew Venson, a prominent Austin musician. Her craft was honed at the famed Berklee College of Music, where she studied piano until her final year, 2011, when she switched to guitar.
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In my best O’Jays voice, “I love music; any kind of music,” but I REALLY love blues. Jackie performed a blues song about her cold days in college that I could put on repeat and play for a while. Her smoky sounding voice is just right to sing the blues.
Although Jackie performs with a three piece band, when I saw her, she had a keyboard player, Johnny Deas, who was really good ,and a drum machine, which she operated herself. Although the two of them made it do what it do, I have to admit it was distracting watching her manipulate a guitar, a drum machine, knobs on the floor AND sing, which meant she couldn’t totally focus on anything.
Jackie, Johnny and her other band members are going to Europe in May and as long as she sings and plays the blues she can’t go wrong.
Check out Jackie and her music, here.
Marilyn Smith is a Los Angeles based writer/reviewer. Contact her via [email protected].
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