Keri Noble could just as easily have been a missionary to some Spanish-
speaking country as a piano-based singer-songwriter.
But fate and a chain of interactions landed her and her keyboard in Minneapolis, where she has been based for the last few years.
Friday evening at the Sacred Heart Music Center, Noble shared her gift for lovely melodies, personal heartfelt lyrics and her mellifluous alto voice with Northlanders as part of a little holiday concert tour around the state.
With a backdrop of flickering candles, stately white pillars and stained glass, Noble sat at Sacred Heart's 9-foot grand piano, together with her rhythm section, and started in the seasonal mode with songs about September "falling leaves means winter's coming again," Christmas and New Year's.
ADVERTISEMENT
"Let It Rain" comes from her "Fearless" disc and signaled great things for Noble in the mid-2000s when industry giants Arif Mardin and Ian Ralfini produced the project. The tune harks back to memories of someone with whom things weren't going to work out: "I know you always thought I'd stay here waiting just in case you wanted to come back; but you never thought I might start healing and I wouldn't want you back." Noble's band mates, Jeff Bailey on bass and Matt Rogers on drums, knew her material and were sensitive throughout the set.
Noble has a distinct way of using chords with the melody in the upper register underneath her voice that thickens the sound in an attractive way.
Noble's father was born and raised in the jungles of Peru, while her mother taught Spanish to schoolchildren. Keri was born in Ft. Worth, Texas, bred in Detroit, but the Twin Cities grew her up musically and gave her the chance to spread her wings. Her early listening was limited to Christian and Gospel music, while all popular music was forbidden, forcing her to catch that from friends with more lenient parents.
With the voluminous number of women at the keyboard who sing and perform their own material, Noble fits in well while not sounding like Norah Jones, Sarah McLachlan, Tori or Alicia. She has a vocal style of her own that kind of curls around her melodies like smoke rings rising from a outdoor campfire. She has just the right amount of rasp in that voice to bring out the soulfulness that imbues most of her songs.
"I Wonder as I Wander" concluded the night on an introspective note and sent the crowd out into the first night of snow here in the Northland with images of shepherds and their flocks, the son of God and the grandeur of life.
The aural beauty of Keri Noble's music mixed with the warmth of Sacred Heart's confines and the first real snowfall in the Northland made for a very special night.
John Ziegler has worker for 35 years in the music industry as a radio host, interviewer, record producer and professional musician. Read his CD Reviews every Thursday in the Wave.
