Staci McBeth makes it her own

NOTE: This blog was published on the date shown at www.TriadLiveMusic.com and is reposted here for archival purposes.  

Staci McBeth

Sat-May15-2010

    I had been planning on going to see the Winston-Salem based group Kitty Hawk all week long but when Friday came I wasn't sure I'd make it because I was physically exhausted from going out every night to listen to music. But I managed to get in a couple of naps during the day and felt good enough to head out to Plum Krazy's to listen to a song or two and call it an early night. Right.
    I wanted to hear Kitty Hawk again because the first time they were in an outdoor venue and the sound was not very good but they were good enough that I wanted to give them a second shot. Thankfully I did. Not only did I listen to a couple of songs but I ended up staying the entire show. It was a good night for music.
    Each member of KittyHawk - Hal Martin (Bass), Tommy Arrington (Drums), Wayne Arrington (Lead Guitar), and Daniel Forrest (Guitar/Keyboards) are seasoned musicians and bring extraordinary talent to the performance. It is, however, lead singer Staci McBeth that creates and provides the dynamic force which the band and audience feeds off of. McBeth's vocals are a powerful instrument that she wields with authority. Most rock and pop songs are written to be sung by men and I don't mean the lyrics so much as I mean the vocal range and styling. Because of this it is difficult at best for a woman to front a rock band singing cover songs and keep it from being distracting. Let's face it - when you hear a band cover a popular tune you want and expect it to be what you hear on the radio and when it's not it just isn't very good - unless the performers make the song "their own." This is exactly why Staci is so good - she is able to make the songs normally sung by men "her own." Take for example the Tom Petty song "Refugee" which KittyHawk covers, a song sung and written to be sung by a males range. Yet when KittyHawk laid into "Refugee" it instantly became "their" song behind Staci's vocals.
    Of course it takes the band to enable her to do that but she is the one out front so if the song fails she is the one that takes the heat for it and on this night the only heat involved was what she was giving in her performance, a performance of covers that she "made her own."