The Flyer's music writers tell you where you can go.

by Jim Hanas & Mark Jordan

The holidays are ostensibly a time for family togetherness. So why then do club owners book so much good music around them? Because they know the truth, which is that most people can’t stand being around their parents too long before

Peggy Scott Adams

questions about when are you going to get married and why don’t you get a real job become unbearable and you have to get out of the house with your friends.
If you’re one of the many rabid Todd Snider fans, you’re probably already planning on being at Newby’s Saturday, and if you’re one of those who can’t stand his occasionally ingratiating, overly populist folk rock, we’re sure you won’t be near the Highland Strip. But if you’re a fence straddler, this may be a good time to check him out, since he reportedly has an awesome band backing him now that includes Neighborhood Texture Jam drummer Paul Buchignani and Ross Rice on keyboards.
But my hands-down, don’t-miss, you-gotta-see pick for this week has to go to Peggy Scott Adams, who’ll be performing at Club Paradise Saturday. Though hardly new to the national blues scene, Adams has made a stunning debut as a solo artist, with a blues that has struck a raw nerve. “Bill,” written by Jimmy Lewis, is a simple but unprecedented twist on the classic my-baby-done-left-me blues lyric. In the song, Adams laments how she caught her husband in bed with his lover who, it just so happens, is a man, namely Bill.
“My man was a queen who thought he was a king,” Adams sings.
The album “Bill” appears on, Help Yourself, has sold more than 120,000 copies, an impressive number for a contemporary blues record. And though no other cuts approach the timely brilliance of “Bill,” there are enough good songs on it to assure that Adams is no one-hit wonder. But even if she is, it’d be well worth the trip to Club Paradise to see her belt out this one song. n – Mark Jordan

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