Opera and blues

Saturday, April 21, 2007
She's a classically trained soprano whose earned her bread and butter hitting the spectacular high notes.

He's the quintessential folk singer, springing from the psychedelic world of 60s folk and pop music.

Together they are --

Wait.

These two are actually singing together?
Actually, yes: Saturday night at the Wyo Theater in Sheridan.

Karen Clift -- a trained opera singer and winner of two Grammy awards -- will belt out Appalachian ballads to the banjo.

Spencer Bohren -- a traveling folk musician with 40 years of on-the-road experience -- will tackle a 16th Century opera duet by Monteverdi.

"I'm sure that a collaboration like this is not totally unique. I'm sure in the history of music there has been a time when a blues singer and an opera singer have gotten together," Bohren said.

"What I think is incredible is that we are both from Wyoming. And this is really good. I would do this anywhere.

"

The concert is a benefit for Sheridan Memorial Hospital's Hospice of the Bighorns program.

Bohren and Clift met through Casper native Pam Lucey -- Clift's high school music teacher in Dayton, and Bohren's childhood friend. Lucey loved Bohren's music and had often talked about him to her students.

(Lucey now teaches music in Glenrock.)

The idea to perform with Bohren started as a small, professional mid-life crisis. Clift's career wasn't built around singing popular music.

It was built around high, larger-than-life masterpieces by Handel, Bach and Monteverdi.

But working under Bobby McFerrin at the Kennedy Center, Clift got a chance to "mess around" musically. She sang Bach for her day job.

Between rehearsals, though, Clift had the chance to improvise with McFerrin. She realized how much she had missed a wide variety of music.

She suggested she and Bohren sing together.

At first, Bohren expected a woman in a Viking hat -- the image of the booming opera singer satirized in popular culture.

Clift surprised him. She suggested they sing the Beatles -- "Eight Days a Week.

"

"As different as our voices are -- his is very bluesy, my tone is very bell-like and clear -- we were really surprised at how well it went together," Clift said.

"I think it's still in the process of evolving. I think this concert is going to be a really fun and really unique event.

"

Saturday, they will try a bit of each other's genre.

She'll play the piano. He'll play the guitar, the banjo and the lapsteel guitar.

He'll try opera. She'll try Lucinda Williams, "Can't Let Go."

"Hearing me grovel and hearing me sing at the real basement of my voice -- it's very different from anything I've ever done for a lot of people," Clift said.

In between, they'll do a bit of so much more: Roy Orbison and, yes, even the Beatles.

Professionally, they are diametric opposites, Bohren said.

She's the technical, sing-from-the-notes-on-paper type of singer.

Bohren likes more to open himself to the muse and see what happens. If a note is anywhere near paper, he doesn't want to play it.

But, somehow, this collaboration works.

"It's really a trip. We both are stretched so far. Creatively, it's something that you don't normally get to do," Bohren said.

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