His Mojo’s Working

Steve Elvis Allen’s got the magic, the mojo, the voodoo, the power – the power to banish cares, transmute sadness to joy and fly people through the sky on his magic carpet. Steve is a musician, vocalist, performer and entertainer who usually works with Sweet Georgia Rose, a shining and lovely singer who lights up a room, puts smiles on her audiences faces with her own magic, and whose costumes range from Barely Legal to Heart Attack.

Last Saturday night Sweet Georgia was indisposed and Steve was running solo. The mood of the crowd was quiet and contemplative, much had happened in many of our lives during the recent past and Steve was carrying a heavy personal load on his shoulders. But Steve is a professional and the show does go on. He usual act starts with him bursting onto stage like a force of nature, electrifying the room and demanding everyone’s attention.

This night was different. It began as a slow and easy seduction, opening with three ballads. Steve Elvis Allen’s interpretation of Time Slips Away displayed a depth and richness of voice and feeling that invoked memories of times past, captured the audience, and put everyone on notice that tonight was going to be set apart from all previous nights. He delivered his second piece, Fever, slowly and softly and with great intensity. You felt he was singing for his absent lover and you remembered that one who got away, or the one you yearn for but who is not here. I’ve never heard a more moving and invocative rendition of You Really Don’t Want To Know. This classic ballad brought memories of lonesome train whistles calling to me in the Midwestern night, a lover I lost through an error of passion so grievous that scars still remain, chances missed and sins regretted. At some point during Steve’s commanding performance, my eyes started to water. Inexplicable. No one smokes in bars anymore. Can’t imagine why I had to get out my handkerchief. Noticed others doing the same. Must have been something in the air that night.

Steve always talks with the audience. His way of engaging with them, friendly joking and conversational, brings them into the performance and is part of his charm. But on this occasion he needed no jokes, no patter, no conversation. He captured us all with his heartfelt delivery of these timeless ballads. I found myself lost in the music, drifting in the melody and lyrics and seeing this magical entertainer where he belongs, under a lone spotlight in Carnegie Hall.

During his second set he amped up the action and threw the switch with classic rock: Suspicious Minds, I Got A Woman, Devil In Disguise. The crowd reflected his energy and a unique symbiosis, almost a call and answer interaction like you used to see in rhythm and blues joints in the Deep South, took over and fed on itself, an avalanche that stared slow and gained force, speed and power as it moved.

By the time a crowd from the big island of Malta arrived, a hour into the act, the place was packed and the heat level high. The door was open to the cool night air and passersby stopped by the music and drawn by the energy were dancing in the street.

Near the end of the evening Steve’s full throated interpretation of Proud Mary pulled every woman in the place onto the dance floor, all in a circle, hands in the air, bodies swaying and moving with the music. Every man present and conscious was spellbound by their primal feminine energy –  Steve the Shaman and music maker. If you closed your eyes for a moment you could feel the power of every woman since Eve and the heat from mankind’s ancient campfires.

Gozo may be the center of the world to those who were born here. To me it’s a lovely little island that time forgot, and I wonder how a performer possessing such talent came to be here, rather than in Vegas or a hundred other first line venues where he has performed in the past. I wonder if folks hereabouts know what a treasure they have for this brief moment while Steve Elvis Allen is performing on Calypso’s Isle. Steve’s a headliner and one day he’ll return to his natural place. If you missed this singular evening you missed a transcendent moment in time.

I once had an opportunity to see Luciano Pavarotti perform in the Roman theatre in Orange, France. I passed on this once in a lifetime performance due to the press of business obligations that seemed to be monumentally important at the time. Now I can’t even remember what those business meetings were about. I did see Luciano’s performance, the one I missed – on video. And I’m always wistful and saddened when I recall that I never experienced the magic of the man himself on that warm summer evening so many years ago.

Steve Elvis Allen will be appearing The Captain’s Table this coming Saturday, along with Sweet Georgia Rose. Don’t miss them. Their mojo’s working.