Kalyn Fay, Justin Bloss, Mallory Eagle
Belafonte
Tulsa
May 24, 2024
Belafonte is like your cool friend’s house, a west Tulsa gem of a venue just off Charles Page Boulevard with a rad mural of a giant fish on the side. That’s how you know you’re there.
Under a lingering sunset, Belafonte welcomed music lovers for an intimate gathering of Red Dirt and bluegrass featuring Kalyn Fay, Justin Bloss and Mallory Eagle on May 24. The show unfolded on a stage framed by cornflower blue walls. Pictures stacked up behind the artists, like a cozy sitcom set.
Before she even stepped onto the stage, Eagle charmed the small crowd with her off-the-cuff humor, cowgirl hat, long brown curls and silky red dress. She introduced herself with an accompanying eagle scream and claw hand, then told stories about rowdy honky tonks in Nashville and her truck-driving, badass neighbor, who became the subject of a delightful original song, “Carole with an E.”
Eagle’s voice slips easily over notes, like a babbling brook over smooth stones. Both her funny and her heartbreaking songs felt effortless. There’s nothing forced about her stage presence, nothing put-on about her talent: a natural wonder. During Eagle’s set, Fay joined her to harmonize on a cover of Townes Van Zandt’s “If I Needed You,” and it was almost like they’d called the late folk legend back from beyond the sky with the raw emotion of their voices.
Between sets, the room collectively got up and went outside to watch the sun continue to set, smoke cigarettes, share a beer and discuss music. Dusk turned to a velvety night, air warm as an old friend, with everyone (including the darkness) taking their time. When the room settled back in, Justin Bloss took the stage. He’s an Osage/Omaha Red Dirt and bluegrass artist, his soul still on fire from touring in March and April with Oklahoma folk great John Moreland.
His eyes, wide open and honest, reflected the lyrical and emotional depth in his carefully crafted songs — like “Something in the Air Tonight,” which features scorching lines like “I’ve been eating four-leaf clovers/Talk you off a ledge so I can push you over” that play above his melodic guitar.
Fay closed out this cozy, egalitarian show with a powerful final set. Her voice and guitar played expertly against Matt Magerkurth’s haunting cello. The cello’s melancholy was a bittersweet counterpoint to a perfect late-spring evening, and blended seamlessly with the Cherokee and Muscogee singer’s resonant sound. Songs like “Elisi” are so evocative of place and emotion, I felt tears that were almost nostalgia, mixed with something like relief. Her tone is the sound of memory given a voice.
By the end of the night, the couches and living room furniture by Bela’s front windows were crowded with musicians, all curled up between their sets, watching and supporting each other.
Eagle, Bloss and Fay sounded even better in person than in recordings. There’s an ineffable magic to that Tulsa sound, a heartbreaking tone to their voices, their humanness, that recording devices have trouble getting right (that I have trouble getting right). It’s like a quiet murmur in the background before the night tucks in, a pause before the next verse begins.
Next at Belafonte: Wheelwright, Leon Majcen, and Charlotte Bumgarner, June 11
