Rose and I sucked it up to catch a lady friend of ours, Wendy Colonna, who braved the slick conditions and motored in from Austin. Seeing her at Anderson Fair is always a nice venue to showcase her smoky, sultry vocals in the quaint surroundings where every seat is a good one.

WC is touring these days in support of her long awaited CD, “Nectar”, which is getting some nice reviews. It is a beautiful composition that Colonna penned after having taken an eight month break due to illness in 2010 thinking about quitting. Check out Houston Music Review’s take on it here.

After poking fun at Texans “making it through” our 24 hours of winter and doing an impromptu strip tease of cold weather gear, Wendy busted into “Dirty Things” from the new album. The disc is all over the board with rockers, reggae-ish tunes and, of course, ballads.

One of our favorites that played well here was tender and touching “Coffee Today” from her 2006 release “Right Where I Belong”. Requests were answered early with killer up-tempo “Hurricane,” which got the place hoppin’. In fact, she really had no set list and was all over the board this night.

Her music can make you flash back to the 1940’s “supper club” feel the way she can grab a hold of you and pull you in with her swampy sincerity. Highlighted new ones that played well also were “Dance With the Moon” and “I’ve Never Been”.

Colonna is a Louisiana native and is so down to earth and sincere that you can almost see her heart on her sleeve as she banters with the audience. Nothing brought that tenderness to light more than when she did “Vacancy.”

Colonna concluded the lovely evening with the foot stomping “Nothin’ Gonna Take My Love,” which was a fitting ending to the gig. On a rare night at the usually sedate and quiet Anderson Fair, where the audience kind of threw WC off kilter a bit with the constant banter, she was able to salvage the evening and leave you glad you came.

Nights like these make you thank the Lord for our great lives and making hard working individuals like Wendy appreciate your support. A night with her lets you sit back and day dream about quiet and peace in our stressed out world we leave behind for a few hours at a time…Try it sometime soon folks!