The multi-hyphenate performer Alicia Witt played the Beachland Tavern on Monday night, bringing her quartet to Cleveland on her Between Heaven and Earth tour.
As an actress-singer-pianist and songwriter, the talented Ms. Witt started her career as a very young actress, making her film debut in the 1984 version of director David Lynch’s Dune.
She went on to work with the auteur several more times during their careers, most notably on various incarnations of his seminal TV show Twin Peaks.
Ironically, she appeared as a high school student that lacked any real musical ability in the vastly underrated 1997 film Mr. Holland’s Opus. While her character couldn’t find her way around a musical instrument, the opposite is true with Witt. She has an enchanting voice and a stage presence matched by a million-watt smile. Sitting behind the keys and playing to the smallish tavern crowd, she thanked the assemblage of patrons for coming out on a dreary Monday night to hear her and the trio behind her perform.
Her current tour is an homage to Lynch, a man she described as an important mentor and someone who vastly changed the direction of her life. She wrote all the songs on her newly-released album (which came out late last month), recording the album fairly quickly in New York City. Most of the tunes are jazz-influenced ballads or folky piano reflections of life and her memories of Lynch, who passed away a few years ago after a long and, well, interesting career, fusing avant garde filmmaking with a very personal perspective of the world around us. Noted for films such as Mulholland Falls and Wild at Heart, perhaps his most accessible work was as a work-for-hire director on the Mel Brooks-produced black-and-white opus The Elephant Man.
Witt has recorded several albums over the last fifteen years while simultaneously tackling acting roles on TV and film, showcasing her versatility as both an actress and a musician. Her voice is somewhat reminiscent of Alison Krauss; the lilting soprano whose wispiness trails off at the tail end of a phrase really catches you off-guard as she brings a song to its end.
Local singer/songwriter Jesse McGee opened for Ms. Witt, playing a half hour of her original tunes.
