John Paul White Goes From Whisper to Scream at the Troubadour

Steve Silkin

“I’m actually a happy person,” said John Paul White, the alt-roots Southern gloom singer, early in his set at the Troubadour. He was trying to tell the audience not to worry about him. It might have worked. Or might not have. Because later in the Jan. 11 show, one of his songs began “You’re gonna die, you’re gonna die, younger eyes are gonna cry.”

It was the ballad he wrote about his adored grandfather. At the funeral, he was surprised to see his grandmother wasn’t crying, and asked her why not. She explained that she had cried so many tears for him while he was alive and so was not sad to see that his suffering had ended.

White explained that we all have peaks and valleys, but that it is the hurt of the fall and the struggle of the climb that leaves the scars that shape who we are. Hence the exploration of the tragic elements of life in his music.

He began with an a capella song, prompting an audience member to repeatedly state the obvious by saying: “God gave you a beautiful voice.” Then White accompanied himself on an acoustic guitar, and was joined by his band of drums, bass, guitar, keyboards and fiddle. White’s vocals built from whisper to scream, from sotto voce ballad to full-tilt rockin’-hard.

And to lighten up the heavy-heartedness evoked by his lyrics and music, White showed off his charm and wit with sardonic misdirection. “This is a new song I wrote,” he said before playing his arrangement of the Beach Boys’ “In My Room” (with the keyboardist switching to authentic vibraphone for that dreamy touch). After the song, White expressed slight-mock wonder about how people had known the words well enough to be able to sing-along. “The Internet,” he slight-mock theorized.

Most of the rest of the show by the male half of the former Civil Wars was spot-on, tough readings of the songs on the latest release, “Beulah.” The big moment was a powerhouse performance of “What’s So.” A propos of nothing immediately obvious, the closer was a John Paul White version of an ELO 1970s radio song, “Can’t Get It Out of My Head,” that White chose to pull out from the mists of history.

Opening was Kernal, a Tennessee outfit. The front man sang with the exact inflection that a certain Minnesota-born New York folk singer named Bob Dylan affected. However, this singer’s phrasing and accent is authentic. So listening to Kernal is like time-traveling to the days back before Dylan and hearing one of the singers who influenced him. 

John Paul White and Kernal played the Troubador on Jan. 11.