Live Review: Long Player Sessions - Texas Tea, Sue Ray

The first instalment of the Long Player Sessions has drawn a good crowd to the Powerhouse's Visy Theatre. Nary a spare seat to be found as the initiative kicks off in the most ambitious of manners, with local country proponent Sue Ray tackling Nina Simone's My Baby Just Cares For Me in its entirety (as per the concept's mandate). She makes an extravagant entrance, looking fantastic with her elegant dress, beautifully coiffured hair, heels and long black gloves, while her backing band of established jazz musicians from about town – John Reeves on piano, Andrew Shaw on double bass and Paul Hudson on drums – provide a perfectly understated backdrop for the business at hand. Early highlight Don't Smoke In Bed showing that while it's impossible to exactly replicate Simone's smoky charm, Ray is vocally more than up for the challenge. She's not just going through the motions but seeming to actually channel the emotions of each song – she states at one point that this is her favourite ever album, so she's clearly implicitly familiar with the material – and she relishes her role during standards such as He Needs Me and I Loves You Porgy. Ray leaves the stage during instrumental Good Bait and re-emerges after a costume change in a lovely flowing number with draped sleeves and finishes a rousing performance with stunning take on classics Plain Gold Ring and Little Girl Blue.

After a brief intermission the newly-configured four-piece version of local alt-country darlings Texas Tea take the stage and immediately transport us to another time and place, tackling Paul Kelly's brilliant 1985 opus Post, the Australian legend's first landmark album. From the very opening bars of the seminal From St Kilda To King's Cross it's clear that this is a great meeting of band and material, Kate Jacobson's vocal inflections adding a whole new dimension to the song, while the band stay faithful to the original arrangements while adding their own inimitable charm. Ben Dougherty is a natural to sing Incident On South Dowling – it has the same ominous tension of much of his own work – before the stocking-footed Jacobson absolutely nails Look So Fine, Feel So Low and its ravaging howls. They add a country flourish to heroin lament White Train which transforms the track, and the lights are dimmed to add atmosphere to the already haunting Blues For Skip. Dougherty takes back the lead for Satisfy Your Woman – some songs will only ever work with a male perspective – and then Jacobson is left to perform the evening's undoubted highlight, a spine-tingling vocal rendition of (You Can Put Your) Shoes Under My Bed. The two vocalists kick off Standing On The Street Of Early Sorrows as a duo before the rest of the band slink on and build it up to a massive finale, and the night ends with a lovely take on the whimsical Little Decisions – a great song to end an album with and also a fitting closing point for a night of music where Brisbane's finest tackle great bodies of work from around the world. We may have just witnessed the beginning of an institution...