Katy Moffatt’s Sunday night set at Atlanta’s venerable Blind Willie’s had two-thirds of the makings for a great show: a sophisticated singer-songwriter, and an intimate venue, perfect for showcasing her subtle talents. Unfortunately, the final (and perhaps most important) ingredient, a worthy audience, was sorely missing. Still, with a few old friends to spur her on, including Jeff Rymes (of the Lonesome Strangers), Moffatt made the best of it, bringing her alternately sweet and sassy soprano and surprisingly skillful guitar playing to bear on a blue streak of songs about the dark side of romance.
After opening with the haunting title tune from her 1996 album Midnight Radio, Moffatt paused to offer up the first of several witty asides, juxtaposing art with the increasingly surreal tide of current events. She explained she’d just performed on “Chat And Chew”, Texan Jim Hightower’s political radio program, which, she quipped, “sounds like one of the acts described in the Ken Starr report.” And before she launched into “Crazy, Dangerous And Blue”, Moffatt said, “I’d like to send this out to Glenn Close, wherever she is tonight.”
The vengeful-woman theme continued as Moffatt interspersed several songs from her new album, Angel Town, with past classics. She segued the pistol-packin’ Cole Porter standard “Miss Otis Regrets” with the bluesy “Junkyard Heart”; Chris Smither’s “Love Me Like A Man” was followed by “Walkin’ On The Moon” and the Cindy Walker chestnut “You Don’t Know Me”. The fact that Bill and Hillary and Monica were the ubiquitous backdrop to the evening was underscored with a nod and a wink when Moffatt closed with a song she wrote with Rosie Flores called “Ruin This Romance”.
