Tony Award winning singer-songwriter brings
his band to Church Street
Sitting in the converted pews of Church Street Center prepares visitors for a religious experience. The voice booming across the room Saturday night resembled a Baptist preacher in every way besides content.
“Stew & The Negro Problem” is an L.A.-based duo made up of Stew and Heidi Rodewald with an added third component, co-collaborator Jon Spurney on piano, keyboard and guitar. All three worked on the group’s Tony award winning play “Passing Strange,” which was adapted into a movie by world-renowned director Spike Lee.
The concert, organized by MCLA Presents!, raised money for the Margaret A. Hart Scholarship. This year’s recipient of the award is Natanael Burgos. Burgos, a senior and sociology major, has made the Dean’s List every semester at the College and has earned many prestigious awards as well. Currently he is in the Semester at Sea program.
Topics covered by the trio ranged from childhood memories of church to high school geometry class and everything in between. They even wrote a song for Spongebob. Vulgarity-ridden monologues highlighted by Stew’s hilarious stage performance introduce every song. The act combines a unique combination of story-telling, music, and comedy.
“Every time we play it’s different,” Stew admitted while flipping through a song list on stage as if he had never seen the songs before.
Almost every tune is silly on the surface, while commenting on some social issue at the same time. This pattern became apparent when the band began playing a song about a Ken Doll in a Mattel factory who is coming to grips with his homosexuality.
“Songs show up on my doorstep like irresponsible friends looking for shelter,” Stew says, explaining the way the group creates songs.
The spontaneity of the entire set is at the forefront: Stew finishes a song about alcohol abuse, shuffles through the songs on his music stand while telling an animated story about going to church with his grandmother. He finds a song he likes, tells it to the other two, and off they go into a well-timed ballad about rehab.
An amp blowing out in the middle set didn’t faze Jon Spurney, he just put his guitar down and took up the piano again.
“We are proud we broke your amp,” Stew proclaimed to a giggling audience.
Leaving the show leaves a visitor wondering how they feel about the concert. Humor and serious social commentary interact with music in such a way that seems almost divine. The feeling that is universal as the crowd heads out into the cold night is the group that can marry gay rights, black culture, and Spongebob in such a beautiful way is “Stew & The Negro Problem.”
by Andrew Hodgson
Staff Writer
