Ranky Tanky with Ms. Lisa Fischer at the Carver

Ranky Tanky with Ms. Lisa Fischer
The Carver Community Cultural Center
Jo Long Theatre
San Antonio
January 17

Some shows stick with you. Not that anyone remembers every note, every word, every move, but an ineffable feeling lingers. Maya Angelou said it: "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

Ranky Tanky and Ms. Lisa Fischer played The Carver on a January evening, and they brought a kind of music that sticks to your ribs. The band's name translates as "work it" or "get funky," and they did. Quiana Parler's mighty voice and the cool clarion call of Charleton Singleton's trumpet rang out over the quintet, with Kevin Hamilton's heavy bass bubbling up from the bottom, matched by the rumbling locomotion of Quentin E. Baxter's drums and Clay Ross's electric guitar, which—mysteriously—seemed to have a bit of kora in it. The band hails from Charleston, South Carolina, and pays tribute to the Lowcountry Gullah culture created by enslaved Africans in the Sea Islands and salt marshes of the region, from whom Baxter, Hamilton and Singleton descend. Their self-titled debut (Resilience Music Alliance, 2017) offered traditional game songs, spirituals and secular dance music of the culture. Good Time (Resilience Music Alliance, 2019), their second release, featured new compositions by band members, winning the Grammy for best regional roots album in 2020, a first for the idiom. And their Live at the 2022 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (Resilience Music Alliance) earned them a second Grammy in the same category in 2023.

Fischer wears a variety of hats. In fact, her outrageous hats are a trademark, as is her gloriously unfettered vocal persona. She had a huge hit single as a solo artist in 1991 ("How Can I Ease the Pain," Electra), then pivoted for a long run as a backup singer for Tina Turner, Luther Vandross, Sting and the The Rolling Stones. You may have seen 20 Feet from Stardom, the Academy Award-winning documentary, which chronicles that journey (Tremolo Productions & Gil Friesen Productions, 2013). With two Grammys notched into her belt, she has continued to collaborate with an array of artists in diverse settings since that time. Fischer first met up with Ranky Tanky ca. 2021 in New York, and was immediately attracted to their music. "I love the weight of what they do" is how she put it.

This was not Fischer's first date at the historic Carver Community Cultural Center, nor was it the local debut of Ranky Tanky, but it was the first time that the two forces joined on that storied stage. Ranky Tanky opened the set with a string of uplifting tunes from their albums: "Be Alright," a grownup lullaby with a reassuring lyric and a solid groove, "Down in My Heart," a clap-along gospel number that deepened the vibe ("I've got love...I've got joy...I've got peace...I've got faith...and faith will save the day") and "You Lift Me Up" ("when I'm weak you make me strong"). The audience was solidly in their corner by the time Fischer joined them.

The mood shifted and the groove got a little lower as Fischer entered the stage for an arrangement of North Carolina blues guitarist Luke Jordan's "Poor Robin" (Victor, 1927), the tale of a no-good woman who took advantage of her lover ("She picked poor Robin clean, picked poor Robin clean; picked the head, picked the feet, would have picked the tail but it wasn't good to eat"). She threw stardust on the sound, moving easily between lead, fat-sounding backups and quasi-instrumental wordless interjections. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards's "Wild Horses" (Sticky Fingers, Rolling Stones, 1971) was up next, dedicated to the married couples in the audience. Here she hit her stride and demonstrated her prowess, working seamlessly with two microphones—one to enhance the effects, one to double down on the narrative—navigating the full spectrum of her expansive vocal range and its many vivid colors. Backups on this one would have been superfluous.

The most powerful performance of the evening was Ranky Tanky's collectively penned "Freedom," from Good Times (YouTube, bottom of this page). The lyric is bold and direct: "Take our bread, take our schools; they say our only choice is to play their fool. They take our land, they take our rights, but they'll never know our power, put up the fight. We'll show you purpose, we'll show you might. We're going to show all the reasons that right is right. Break these walls, break these chains. Trouble won't last always when only love remains." An insistent ostinato in the guitar served as the throughline, with Parler's voice rising assuredly above, the bass thundering below, drums pressing forward and Fischer's voice etching its magnificent detail on the chorus, turning the final syllable of the word "freedom" into an om-chanting meditation. Simply beautiful.