Concert Review: Robert Burke Warren celebrates a life in song (and story)
The multi-talented singer-songwriter and storyteller celebrates his birthday with a generous, intimate set of original songs and covers at The Local in Saugerties, N.Y.
(Saturday, March 30, 2024) SAUGERTIES, N.Y. – The multitalented Robert Burke Warren took listeners on a journey through his life and times via song and story at his annual Big Birthday Shindig concert that took place this year at the Local, a relatively new, intimate, and lovely venue located in the former chapel of a Dutch Reformed Church on a side street in this quaint Hudson Valley village.
Warren, a longtime Woodstock resident, is known equally for his skills as a singer, songwriter, and storyteller. The author of hundreds of songs, essays, columns, and at least one novel (Perfectly Broken), is also known to parents and former children in the region as a children’s entertainer, performing under the moniker Uncle Rock.
As Warren demonstrated from the stage, he is an affable entertainer, quick with an anecdote, a quip, a poem, or a song. His years of stage performance as a musician and actor have made him a comfortable, confident presence, a generous frontman and a deft guitarist whether he is fingerpicking or playing arpeggios or emphasizing rhythmic aspects of his material with power chords, all on acoustic guitar.
Warren’s original songs and even his choice of cover tunes served as a form of memoir, as he writes closely about episodes and people in his fascinating life, from childhood friends in Georgia to falling hard for music to places he has traveled and people he has loved. A Buddy Holly tune (“Everyday”) was a nod to his stint as the title character in London’s West End production of Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story, and a version of the old country classic, “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” was meant to illustrate the power of music to entrance young listeners.
But it was his original compositions, some serious, some comic, some a mixture of serious and comic, that displayed Warren’s mastery of turning life’s lived lessons into artful, carefully crafted folk-rock songs, some that belied his musical influences, including hints of David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, the Cars (or, as he pointed out, Ohio Express by way of the Cars, who lifted the riff from the Ohio Express bubblegum confection “Yummy Yummy Yummy” for their early hit “Just What I Needed”), and pre-rock pop standards, several of which he sang (including a tribute to his home state, “Georgia on My Mind,” by Hoagy Carmichael, ably accompanied on piano by Dennis Yerry).
Warren sang about the time the Esopus Creek overflowed its banks and threatened to wash away his Woodstock home. Another number recounted a trip to the Andes with his brother, which turned into a psychedelic experience due to thelackof drugs he took, having left his prescription anti-depressants back home, thus adding to the disorienting experience of climbing high while going through SSRI withdrawal. Warren found a way to make this anxiety-provoking episode a mostly comic scenario.
A key number recounted the experience of seeing an estranged friend star in a live performance of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which served to renew the relationship of the two childhood pals while opening Warren’s eyes (and ears) to a whole new world and style of “showfolk,” a term he embraces in his onstage patter and in his writing.
Warren radiated great love and affection for his audience, and the crowd in turn sent it right back to him. It was a terrific birthday celebration for all, and a reaffirmation of Warren’s talents as a performing singer-songwriter, an aspect of his work that is sometimes given short shrift in favor of his skills as a tribute performer, with his annual concerts saluting the music of David Bowie, Leonard Cohen and the like.
Frankly, Warren could probably sing the phone book and make it sound both funny and profound. But I’ll settle for his patented blend of original songs, choice cover tunes, and a few old pop standards from this showfolk.
Hey, did you like this edition of Everything Is Broken? If so, please consider clicking on the “LIKE” button at the very end of this message. It matters to the gods of Substack.
Roll Call: Founding Members
Anne Fredericks
Anonymous (7)
Erik Bruun
Nadine Habousha Cohen
Fred Collins
Fluffforager
Benno Friedman
Amy and Howard Friedner
Jackie and Larry Horn
Richard Koplin
Paul Paradiso
Steve and Helice Picheny
David Rubman
Spencertown Academy Arts Center
Elisa Spungen and Rob Bildner/Berkshires Farm Table Cookbook
Julie Abraham Stone
Mary Herr Tally