Veronica Klaus: Spring Affair

Steve Murray | April 14, 2015

Veronica Klaus

Spring Affair

The Oasis, San Francisco, CA, April 3, 2015

Reviewed by Steve Murray for Cabaret Scenes

Veronica Klaus is deeply entrenched in the 1940s and ’50s style of the last century. Her look, her style, her attitude and choice of music hail back to a glorious moment in American swing music. Peggy Lee is her main muse and Klaus couldn’t have made a finer selection. Backed by longtime collaborator Tammy Hall on the piano, swing songs like the suggestive “Somebody Touched Me,” “I Wish I Were in Love Again” or “Why Don’t You Do Right (Get Me Some Money, Too)” are deftly delivered in Klaus’s mid-Western twang. Her arrangement of the Smokey Robinson tune “The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game” is closer to the Jerry Garcia Band’s slowed-down tempo than the original Marvelettes release and is a joy. Similarly, she re-invents Phoebe Snow’s “Something Real” into a heartfelt plea for emotional connection. Klaus’s flip side brings slow, sensual ballads, like Arthur Hamilton’s “Rain Sometimes” and “Wait’ll It Happens to You,” which she nails. Winner of a 2015 “Bestie Cabaret Singer” award, Klaus’s fans revel in her retro appeal and, with it, she educates contemporary audiences to the classics like Lee, June Christy, Billie Holiday and other greats. Job well done.