Antje Duvekot and Rachael Davis: Pure Magic!
 by Kathy S-B  ·  18 November 2006

&tLast night the me & thee coffeehouse literally glowed. Two of the brightest young singer-songwriters on the acoustic music scene shared our stage and the room exuded l-o-v-e. Now you may think that sounds pretty saccharine but ask anyone who was there and they’ll tell you that it’s absolutely true.

First there was Antje Duvekot. If you haven’t heard of Antje or heard any of the major buzz about this young woman, then I don’t know what to say! I have WERS to thank for turning me onto Antje more than a year and a half ago. It was one of those rare moments when you hear something on the radio and it immediately gets burned into your soul. Here it was a typical day. A typical drive to the T station. I was doing my channel surfing, bopping from station to station and then there was this voice singing about young Judas Iscariot. Huh? What? Judas and Jesus C (every mother’s favorite son) playing ball on Sundays, riding on the school bus…yes, the images are riveting but dig a little deeper and listen a little harder and you’ll hear the updated scenario concerning bullets and regrets and being invisible. Think Judas at Columbine perhaps. Well, suffice it to say that that one little song made an incredible impact on me.

I had just taken on the role of the me & thee booking “person” so I thought I’d try to see if Antje would be willing to play at the coffeehouse. The bad news was that we were already booked for our entire 2005-2006 season. So I took a chance and booked Antje to a November 2006 gig and paired her with another Boston Music Award winner, Rachael Davis, and figured between the two of them, we’d get an audience. If I was a gambling kind of person, I would have put money on Antje…I just sensed that Antje would be big…and my senses must be working overtime because I am proud to say that I nailed this one. Scott Alarik had presented Rachael Davis at the coffeehouse in 2002 so we all were well aware of her musical goods but I had no idea what Antje was like on stage. I was lucky enough to have booked Ellis Paul last February and asked him to bring Antje along as an opener. That was a truly amazing evening and we all started our countdown to last night’s show!

As is evidenced last evening, these ladies do have a following! I’m not a set list kind of reviewer…maybe someone else will pipe in and give some details. I’m more about vibes and as I indicated earlier——the coffeehouse was bursting with love last night. It was a sensation to behold. Antje’s stage presence is home-spun in a sincere and artistic way. And I mean home-spun in the best sense of the word.. She is charmingly self-deprecating and admits that all her songs are bummers. The audience was hers and you could practically hear a pin drop during her softer songs and instant nods of recognition when she began songs like “Dandelion” and “Pearls.”

Now let me tell you a bit about Rachael Davis. She is so very different from Antje. She’s one small little package with a big gorgeous voice that rocked the rafters of the church. Think Janis Joplin. For me, the highlight was her a cappella version of “Grandma’s Hands.” Standing a good foot or more from the microphone, she grabbed that song and crafted it into her very own. Bill Withers would be proud of her rendition, for sure. It was the perfect marriage of a voice to a song, in my opinion. Rachael showed various parts of her musical self—-yeah, she belted out many numbers with that strong, sensuous voice of hers but she also pleased the audience with her cute little tune about her cousin’s new baby, played delicately on her new ukulele.

Rachael was accompanied all evening by Brett Hartenbach on guitar and Dominic Suchyta (from Steppin’ in It) on upright bass. What a tight band. They were in perfect harmony with Rachael, giving her the limelight and also pumping it up when it was needed. Another highlight was a mini-medley of two ole traditional favorites, “The Cuckoo” and “Shady Grove.” Wow! I could have listened to it all night long.

The evening culminated with Antje joining Rachael on stage for a hilarious version of Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls.” Part of the fun was the missed lyrics and the spontaneity of trying something different in front on an audience. I can’t say that anyone has ever covered a Queen song at the me & thee so that was a first! A soulful version of Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready” was a fitting end:

People get ready
There’s a train a-coming
You don’t need no baggage
You just get on board
All you need is faith
To hear the diesels humming
Don’t need no ticket
You just thank the lord

Man oh man. We heard those diesels hummin’ last night. Amen. Praise da Lord!
How many days til these two fantastic performers return to the me & thee!

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