From Prince tunes to originals, John Powhida has it covered

A pair of musical worlds briefly collided in 1983 when Stevie Nicks recorded her hit “Stand Back” with help from Prince — the first and only time those two pop icons collaborated. That moment will be celebrated Friday and Saturday at House of Blues’ Foundation Room for a show called “Stand Back” — the first and probably only Boston club gig to combine Prince and Stevie Nicks tribute sets.

One-off covers nights are a longstanding local Halloween tradition, giving some of Boston’s favorite original bands a chance to honor their roots. Tonight’s show is no exception: The aptly-named Stevie Chicks is an all-star, all-female lineup including soul woman extraordinaire Andrea Gillis, rock ’n’ roller Jen D’Angora (of Jenny Dee & the Deelinquents), singer/songwriter Magen Tracy and more. Helming the Prince set will be John Powhida, one of the local scene’s savviest songwriters. And yes, they’ll join forces onstage for the title song and maybe a surprise or two.

Powhida makes no secret of his love for Prince, who ranks with Todd Rundgren and Randy Newman in his own musical pantheon. He can do an uncanny imitation of Prince’s trademark falsetto wail, and says Prince has informed his own work as a singer and writer. “I love the way he fearlessly combines black and white music. That’s what my heroes have always done, they went for it, even if they had massive nosedives. I certainly learned how to sing by listening to those falsettos of his — How many adult men will get up and sing like that? And of course the humor he has, the ‘Sign o’ the Times’ album is loaded with super funny lines.”

That mix of funny and serious is a trademark of Powhida’s own work, as is a mix of R&B influences and heavy power-pop elements. His band John Powhida International Airport is celebrating its new album, “The Bad Pilot,” with shows at Toad in Cambridge every other Tuesday, including this coming week. You’ll likely be grinning and humming along, but the deeper moments in the tunes will hit you on the way home.

Two of the new album’s best concern his status as a working dad in Arlington: “I Know What the Housewife Dreams” and “Recycle Morning in Arlington Heights” are both jaded love letters to the everyday realities of being a grown-up family man. The former is a scruffy, Stones-y rocker about a guy who realizes he’s becoming a housewife, with the requisite sexual fantasies and a weakness for “the Collinses, Jackie and Phil.” The latter tune, he said, “really wrote itself. I was carrying out the recycling one morning and it was loaded with wine bottles and diaper boxes. And the verses kept coming — it has so many it’s like a Dylan song.”

“Life is a tragic comedy, and I finally figured out that lyric writing was just about saying what’s on my mind,” he said. “I try to sculpt them in a way that’s like poetry, but not overly pretentious. And I think that’s what separates me from my heroes — you can listen to one of my songs and say, ‘That sounds like Bowie’ or ‘That one’s like Todd.’ But I can say that the lyrics always sound like me.”

---

“Stand Back!” with John Powhida and the Stevie Chicks. At the House of Blues Foundation Room, Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m. Tickets: $20 at the door.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/34mIqf0