Grace Potter and the Nocturnals soar with national tour and new CD: Local band touches back down in Vermont for three celebratory shows

On a frosty, midwinter night three years ago, I walked out of a tiny local nightclub certain I'd just witnessed one of those watershed moments in a band's evolution, just before it shifts into high gear and rockets off toward far bigger and well-earned horizons.

Though the venue was cramped — with a stage about the size of a cocktail napkin, no dressing room and a standing-room-only audience — Grace Potter and the Nocturnals seemed endearingly unaffected by it all. After nearly three transcendentally muscular hours of blues-infused original rock, which had visions of vintage Aretha, Elmore James and The Band dancing in my head, this young quartet of consummate musicians was as blithely matter-of-fact about the 18-degree night air into which they had to retreat between sets as they were the roaring crowd.

When duly summoned back inside, the band cheerfully maneuvered its way through the chairs and, shivering in the filmy blouse that enshrouded her small but powerful frame, Potter settled back down at her keyboard, flipped auburn Nico-esque bangs out of her heavily-mascaraed eyes and with a broad, intrepid grin quipped, "Ah, can't beat winter in Vermont."

She should know. Still based in the Waitsfield house in which she was born and raised, Potter is keeping one foot firmly planted on hometown soil as the band's trajectory moves into the steep, fuselage-shuddering incline I'd felt sure that crushingly soulful performance had portended.

Three bars into their first tune and the charismatic, ambrosial convergence of Potter's seasoned, smoky voice, Scott Tournet's vivid guitar, drummer Matt Burr's propulsive percussion and Bryan Dondero's probing bass had us all utterly transfixed.

I wasn't in the least surprised, therefore, when channel surfing late-night options last summer I caught the foursome jolting Craig Ferguson's audience into a frenzy with a raucous rendition of "Ah, Mary", a searing comment on the political climate that ends with Potter howling "Ah-merica …" with the same ferocity of Merry Clayton's scorching lamentations in the Rolling Stone's "Gimme Shelter."

Not only a powerhouse singer but a prolific songwriter as well, Potter infuses everything she does with the authentic grit of a woman who, at a mere 24 years old, possesses a profoundly intuitive understanding of the human condition, with a breadth of wisdom that conveys everything from feisty optimism and unflinching defiance to palpable despair and gin-soaked regret.

Disc No. 4

"This Is Somewhere," the band's newest CD, is their fourth release in as many years and has all the blistering vocals, vigorous musicality and soulful depth of Etta James, Lucinda Williams or the Stones in their early-'70s prime, balanced by the fresh conviction and fearless energy of a group that's untethered but earnest.

Having co-produced the album with multi-instrumental guru Mike Daly, former member of Whiskeytown, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals are boldly venturing into pivotal professional frontiers while keeping a firm grip on both their creative process and their roots.

Home for the holidays in the midst of a triumphant national tour — with highly anticipated shows at Burlington's Higher Ground tomorrow night, Saturday and New Year's Eve — Potter pulsed with state pride when I asked about the experience of working with the bigwigs at Hollywood Records.

"I always drag them here to Vermont so they can see what's going on", she laughs, "and so they won't think we're this stupid band that won't take its training wheels off. They don't always get us because we're this indie group but it's important for us to maintain a good relationship and I want to show them that Vermont promotes clear thinking!"

That clarity informed her choice for the CD cover as well. With a title that references "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" by Neil Young and Crazy Horse, one of the band's many influences, the meaning in the image on "This Is Somewhere" is metaphorically germane to her abiding sense of pride, both national and familial.

Taken by her photographer father, Sparky, it shows a cluster of men struggling to control what was to be the world's largest American flag draped across the Triborough Bridge for the 1976 bicentennial. Strong winds plastered all four acres of sailcloth to the bridge and it had to be cut up before taking down the entire structure.

"It's a comment on what's going on now in the U.S., of the ego in thinking we can hoist this massive thing up and not tear ourselves down. We're struggling hard but it's futile."

Potter's use of the photo also reflects family bonds that have sustained her throughout her career. "My whole family is out of their gourds about it all", she attests, "and they've believed in me from the start."

Meet the band

Guitarist Tournet, also a native Vermonter and equally effervescent despite being, at a ripe 31, the self-described "old guy" of the band, wholly concurs and sees a direct correlation between those ties and the band's core audience.

"We all have close relationship with our folks," he explains, "and they listened to cool music so Woodstock is a source — Santana, Hendrix, Richie Havens, CSNY — but then we also go back to the origins of all that."

When Tournet, Potter and drummer Burr first met in upstate New York six years ago, a local music shop helped them germinate the seeds of their future sound. "There was nothing to do there except get cheap records … The Beatles, The Band, Aretha, Led Zeppelin … and just listen and hang out."

"It enabled us to create to our own little creative bubble and draw from influences that weren't necessarily cool." A teacher at St. Lawrence University, Tournet and his cohorts would pay homage to their elders at local gigs. "We'd play these cover songs for college crowds and they wouldn't get it."

Well, we grown-ups get it, loud and clear. Potter's songs, meticulously arranged, textured and colored by the rest of the band, gracefully stitch together entire genres, resulting in a cohesive amalgam of ragged Delta blues, poetic folk, satiating garage rock and sweet Memphis soul.

When I told her that some of their new stuff brings to mind Dusty Springfield, in particular the essential "Dusty In Memphis" album, Potter blurted, "Our producer would love you! That's all he would talk about the whole time. That's the platform for everything he does … he's a classic producer."

The intimate, husky timbre of her voice perfectly cradles songs like "Apologies," an achingly lush melody that starts out declaring "Love is like a blanket, it's a little bit too warm sometimes" and exquisitely unravels under a cadence of anguish, waxing and waning to a tear-stained end — "and now it's too late for a soliloquy, way too late for dignity, too late for apologies."

Likewise," Lose Some Time," with its sparse, rustic patina and poignant, organic charm transports us to an earlier era, musically and lyrically, with lines like, "Finding time to lose with you is water in the dust bowl."

Two incandescent power-pop gems, "Mr. Columbus" and "Ain't No Time," rip the lid off the band's versatility and confirm that, amidst remarkable technical expertise, they're a dynamic freighter of fun as well, with Potter's surging Hammond B-3 and Wurlitzer weaving pure ebullience into Tournet's fervent inverted chords and brawny strumming.

The feisty mettle in Potter's vocalizations also evoke shades of The Animals at their hard-driving, R&B best and, as in their case, there is both a fierceness and fragility in Potter's songs stemming from an astute veneration of the spiritual heft and raw candor in southern musical traditions.

"I always loved gospel and blues," she asserts, "Lightnin' Hopkins and Sister Rosetta were two of my original influences, especially when I saw her playing a big electric guitar with a slide."

At the suggestion that, collectively, she and the Nocturnals seem to have a remarkably old soul, she agrees wholeheartedly. "It's because we all grew up appreciating classic rock. The Who and Led Zeppelin have been my favorite rock bands since I was seven."

As for current inspirations, Tournet's favorite these days is Wilco. "Their new album is really different and we want our next one to be simple and soulful. It's cool because it feels like there's so much room for exploration."

Having played legendary venues such as The Fillmore in San Francisco and New York's Bowery Ballroom, with Lincoln Center slated for February, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals are doing Vermont proud out in the big world while still holding on to the roots they cherish.

"It's important to feel connected to a time and place," Potter reflects. "I'll have these weird twinklings of homesickness, that I want to be in one place that I'm so far from, but sometimes I feel I'm exactly where I want to be and that's when I'm performing."

Whether Vermont or center stage is the place, with such primal musical connections to "Dusty In Memphis," "Gimme Shelter" and "Everybody Knows This is Nowhere," all of which were recorded in 1969, the same year Woodstock happened, perhaps that's the time.

Regardless of where the road takes Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, their enthusiasm about this weekend's shows give me the sense that their song "Here's To the Meantime" — which closes with a rousing "You gotta get yourself back home, before I find you and kindly remind you" — must be something of a mantra.

They're home all right, so get over to Higher Ground this weekend, strap yourselves in and hang on for what's sure to be a wild, eclectic and multi-generational ride.

*Note: I'll be recovering from too much fun at GPTN's shows, so no Sover Scene next week but I'll be back on the 10th!

Online: www.gracepotter.com
www.highergroundmusic.com
Annie: annieguyoncommunications.com