Cristina Vane has followed a unique musical and life path. Half Sicilian-American and half Guatemalan, she was raised in Paris, and her journey led her to Los Angeles and now Nashville — and to a passion for roots music, especially country blues, which she explored in “Little Girl From Nowhere.”
In her recent appearance at Jammin’ Java, her skill on guitar and banjo and her powerhouse vocals were on full display.
On May 9, Cristina and her band started the show with “Travelin’ Blues,” followed by “Hard Rock Bend,” which she said is “a little bit about the music industry.” “Little Black Cloud,” she explained, is in the style of the north Mississippi Hill Country Blues. She wrote “Make Myself Me Again” while driving through West Virginia. While it was originally “about some stupid boy,” the song changed and became something else.
I’m not sure whether to take her statement that “Bad Attitude” is not autobiographical at face value. “Getting High In Hotel Rooms” was written in Las Vegas, “in a metal tower filled with hundreds of people that felt like an airport.” The lone cover of the night was blueswoman Jessie Mae Hemphill’s “Bullyin’ Well.”
Watch the official music video for “Getting High in Hotel Rooms” by Cristina Vane on YouTube:
As she was tuning her banjo, she told a joke: “What’s the difference between a banjo and a dead possum on the road? The possum was on its way to a gig.” She introduced “River Roll” as being “about the end of the world,” but also about nature. Cristina followed that with the title track of her most recent album, Hear My Call. She wrote “Storm Brewin,’” she said, “somewhere in Utah.”
“You Ain’t Special” was delightfully blunt, while “Everything In Time” was equally tender. She played a song she hasn’t released set, describing how songs “kind of grow up,” then did an impression of Joey from Friends to introduce “How You Doin’?” Cristina and her band rocked out on the penultimate song of the evening, “Shake ‘N’ Bake.” She finished her set with “Small-Town Nashville Blues,” which is about “the perils of dating in Nashville.” Having some musicians in my family, and being aware of what often goes with that, I can see how it’d be difficult.
This was my first time seeing Vane play live, and I really enjoyed this show. The music was great, and she kept things engaging and interesting. Being an old man, it didn’t hurt that I was able to get home before ten o’clock, either!
