Dawn Tyler Watson-Blues
November 3, 2018
Maison de la culture Maisonneuve
4200 Ontario Street East
What happens when you back up a tremendous vocalist/composer/producer with an award winning band and put them in front of an intimate setting with adoring fans? Tonight was a gift. Dawn Tyler Watson backed up by Ben Racine and his band, a four piece rhythm section plus a three piece horn section, and everyone at the top of their game. I have been a fan of Dawn Tyler Watson from the first time I saw her perform at a music festival on the West Island sometime in the 1990’s. I have watched her perform on more than one occasion with Paul Deslauriers in a similar venue in St. Henri and on the main stage at the Montreal Jazz Festival in front of 100 000 fans. I have seen her in a small intimate bar on St. Denis accompanied only by a pianist and she constantly delivers. Tonight she owned the stage. Her vocals were superb and her stage presence, as always, commands attention. She did two sets of approximately fifty minutes each with a short intermission. She started the second half with a song titled This and That from an early album and in the musical interlude she played the “air trumpet” as only Dawn can. I am not aware of the titles of some of the songs she sang tonight, one was a song that Adele has recorded, and a couple of heavy duty “ love gone bad “ type songs. A great time was had by all and even after an encore the crowd would have gladly stayed for more. Dawn has established herself as a blues diva and deserves to be catapulted into the world of Grammies.
