Fri 5/5 @ 8:30PM
Halle Petro left her native Cleveland to study theater in New York. But along the way, making her own music took precedence over inhabiting someone else’s lines. With her band Halle & the Jilt, she released her debut album Lucky You in 2011. Her follow-up, Three Roads Home, is in the pipeline, ready for delivery this month.
Petro has an actor’s sense of how to bring out the meaning in words, as she belts or lightly brushes over lyrics that mostly deal with the vicissitudes of love. Her flexible voice has a tough, worldly quality well suited to the veins of blues, soul, and jazz that run through her classic-sounding tunes. A sassy, bluesy number like “Moving Along” from Lucky You could have come from any time in the last 50 years. Because she’s not jumping on pop trends and her songs aren’t frothy little ditties, her music’s got staying power.
She’s performing at Nighttown, an apt environment for her adult music. Tickets are $20.