Nick Dothee

Tweet this article !

Nick Dothée's songs are testimonies to the complexities of the self and his relentless efforts to untangle its knots. He is a searcher, an explorer in song who has the gift of a profoundly vibrant and well trained voice, capable of great expressiveness and power in all parts of his considerable range. His  Return From Portland show at the Canal Room (6/15/11) was a great success.

He generously shared the stage with his sometime collaborator, the prolific multi-talented Kevin Ray, the soulful sparkplug Kristine Bogan, the up-and-coming folk-rock trio Astoria Boulevard and the Broadway songstress Alysha Umphress (American Idiot), who all performed prior to Nick's appearance.     

During his set, Nick was backed by the Star Dust All Stars: Abby Burke on vocals, Brandon Ellis on cello, Jeff Washburn on guitar and Kevin Ray on keys, who were augmented by the solidly and tastefully supportive work of Jon Toscano on bass and Mitch Williams on drums. Nick Dothée and Kevin Ray have penned the insomniac's national anthem  "Sleep Tonight," with its maddened lament "there's no answer that seems right." The song is an uncomfortably precise description of a thrashing psyche's tortured night, musically encased in a dizzyingly soaring hook that exploits Nick's ability, like Kevin Ray's, to vocally traverse with apparent ease, areas way above the staff; those very areas that give most singers reasonable cause for the sleeplessness Nick so mercilessly anatomizes.                                                                                                                                                                             

The set was sprinkled with a few cover tunes, most notably Roy Orbison's "Crying," which was immeasurably enhanced by Brandon Ellis' spine tingling, elegantly phrased oblagati "On the Reggaeish Broken," that showcased the musicianship and adaptability of Mr.Wilson and Mr.Toscano, who don't regularly work with the Star Dust All Stars. Nick provided a hint of what he can do on the up-tempo numbers one might wish he'd do more often.                                 

On "Healing Time," Nick's powerful, first solo songwriting effort, Abby Burke, who recently brought down the house at Iridium, demonstrated how she uses the chilling richness of her voice to ferociously convey the depths of feeling that only the best singers can conjure. "Healing Time" shows Nick to be well on his way to becoming a consummate master of the thinking man's power ballad.  "Portland" (also a duet with Abby), a song in which the band perfectly matched the carefully constructed build of the lyrics, was a piece that solidifies the sense that Nick is a songwriter who grapples with fundamentally religious themes in a secular context. He imbues "Portland" with the metaphoric status of "City On The Hill," that becomes the unreachable destination that is always worth striving for.   

We're glad these utopias reliably prove illusory, which is why Nick Dothee is back in NYC. And everyone is very happy about that.