Late this morning, I ventured to City Winery in Boston to see and hear Wild Taxi - a tribute act to Cat Stevens (a.k.a. Yusuf) and Harry Chapin. Wild Taxi features Howie Fields (pictured left) on drums. Fields joined Chapin's band in 1975 and played with him until his sudden death at the age of 38 in 1981.
Wild Taxi is actually a subgroup of a larger acoustic musical project called Satinwood. In addition to their tribute to Stevens and Chapin, they have another tribute act called Rainy Day People which is a tribute to both Gordon Lightfoot and Jim Croce. I saw Rainy Day People at City Winery in August 2022 when they were booked in a smaller performance area called the Haymarket Lounge.
Alas, Wild Taxi was booked in the main hall, and this was the start of why I was unfortunately not wild about the event. Their music is meant for a more intimate setting rather than in a large supper club environment where people are crammed together. I've had my issues with this venue when I saw Leonid & Friends this past Memorial Day and when I saw Gilbert O'Sullivan in March 2023. It was my hope to minimize some of these issues by sitting in the same seat I had next to the stage when I saw Ron Sexsmith in February 2023. It didn't help matters much. Last year, I was only focused on Sexsmith whereas today it was a five-person band.
Despite Wild Taxi being a Satinwood project along with Rainy Day People their approach this different. With Rainy Day People, the set alternated between Lightfoot and Croce. Not so with Wild Taxi. The first half of the show was devoted to Cat Stevens and the second half was devoted to Harry Chapin.
With that said, the first half of the show was solid. Wild Taxi has Stevens' material down pat. In fact, it reminded me of when I saw Cat Stevens in concert at the Wang Theatre in December 2014 in what was his first U.S. concert since 1976. The songs which received the most rapturous response were from Tea for the Tillerman. Not surprisingly, nearly half of the Cat Stevens set was devoted to songs from Tea for the Tillerman ("Into White", "Where Do The Children Play", "Hard Headed Woman", "Sad Lisa" and "Wild World"). Wild Taxi's arrangements were so close to the album it took me back both to listening to the album and when I attended Stevens' concert.
Following a brief intermission, Wild Taxi embarked upon their tribute to Chapin. This proved to be disappointing. Despite the presence of Fields in the band, they were not as strong on Chapin's catalogue. Wild Taxi leader Paul Motter had trouble getting the opening riff for "Cats in the Cradle". Well, as Harry might have said, "Close enough for Chapin music."
But when Motter asked Fields to tell the story behind "Story of a Life", Fields demurred and passed the ball back to Motter. Unfortunately, Motter claimed that Chapin wrote the song while on a flight from Dallas to Fort Worth. That would be a short flight. In fact, the flight was from Austin to Dallas. Motter and the band also seemed to be phoning it in when performing "30,000 Pounds of Bananas".
As it turned out, Wild Taxi had to be off stage prior to 2 p.m. which meant they had to cut the Chapin set short by about five songs. I'm not sure of all the songs they cut but I do know they were planning on playing "Corey's Coming". Motter's wife Melanie (who was on keyboards) was confused about which song they were playing to end the show. Her husband replied, "It begins with a T." This meant "Taxi". They performed a decent rendition but Motter's trying to impersonate Big John Wallace's falsetto on the bridge just didn't work.
There was a demand for an encore, but the band said they had to go. Thus, the show ended on a sour note, and I wanted to get out of there as soon as I could. Perhaps I would have enjoyed the show more if it had been in the Haymarket Lounge or some other more intimate venue in which things weren't so rushed. I can only hope the circle will come around next time.
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