The Boiler Room is a youth oriented and community supported drug and alcohol free coffee house in Port Townsend, WA. It is a small venue that showcases some of the best and brightest talent in music, art, poetry, and whatever else happens to grace their stage. I’ve been to several concerts and I’m always blown away by the high quality of talent basking in their tiny spotlight. This last concert was no exception.
Singer/songwriter Beth Whitney is a real treasure. Deliberate and pure, her voice is pleasantly lyrical with a bit of street-smarts lilting through her breathy splendor. A superbly original voice revealing such a luscious wisp of angst that you’ll believe she’s singing from the lips of blissful angels.
When Beth Whitney sings her delightfully intimate songs you’ll deem that you are her one and only true admirer. That she is singing just for you, as if you are her best friend or a family member that has encouraged her talents all of her life. And for that sublime concert in Port Townsend by the sea, I thought I was. I thought I knew her an eternity, and that her words of faith, love, and tiny sufferings were ours to share behind closed doors. She transported me to my secret garden where I go to escape the fanatical life swirling all around me. Songs such as her haunting Wayfaring Stranger or the equally powerful Miss Misery are a testament to her heart worn upon a sturdy yet fragile sleeve while other tunes such as Mary Lou and Broken Beauty are raindrops weeping down a frosty window pane. They reveal a deeply spiritual soul that takes her gifts, wraps them in tender orchestrations to hand-deliver her tiny portrait of the world.
Aaron Fishburn, her bassist and significant other, is equally as talented as he accompanies her as if they are indeed one heart beating. While the sound they create together is truly symphonic, there is still a scrumptious originality to Aaron’s style that peeks through her musical splendor winking like the sun. It knows it cannot compete with the rainbow we are in awe of nor needs to because it has helped create the colors cascading across the sky. Together they are the pot of gold.
There wasn’t a song that I didn’t like or another to upstage the one before. Everything Beth Whitney graciously offered was consistently first-rate. This was a performance as seasoned as any singer/songwriter I’ve ever seen our heard before. No fear, no uncertainty, just an easy breezy desire to express her happiness at being able to perform. In that simple act of self expression I was quite enchanted because I have only experienced that sort of poise a few precious times before. Once was at a concert presented by the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. 60’s icon Janis Ian was in the spotlight. She was beginning her signature Grammy-award winning song At Seventeen while I smiled from my cabaret table in the front row. Janis sang her classic for the pure joy of it. It is that type of musical grace and affecting dedication that Beth Whitney displays with each and every song. Another reason to suppose she is on a sweet and tender path to certain stardom, and is quite truly a talent to behold.
