Imagine black, high-heeled combat boots, jagged spiderwebs, swaying fringe and a torrent of blond hair. But hold on, that was at evening’s end.
On a hot afternoon below the red rock encircling the town of Torrey, Sister Dottie S. Dixon, along with her dead-on Spanish Fork accent, played hostess to the fifth annual Women’s Redrock Music Festival on Friday night.
Sister Dottie (aka Charles Lynn Frost) played accent games with the audience, teaching them how to drop Ts in words such as kitten (ki-en), and held raffles, the lucky winners of which got prizes ranging from bright-red Chez Dottie T-shirts to the “Mormon Kama Sutra” (gotta find a copy of that).
Then Liza Garza took the stage, her voice, hands and feet making the music and poetry she calls prophetic narration. She’d escaped her hometown of Flint, Mich., but said she would not forget its hard times and lives, walking where it was “as if the concrete could reach up and grab us.”
She described her liberation, when she took a buzz razor to her head and shaved away the dark hair that hung to her calves. Except for the birth of her two sons, she said, it was the “most spiritual transformation in my life.”
Then she headed for Texas. “I’m not really talking about my hair,” Garza said.
The festival is, after all, about enjoying “life, love and liberation.” As the crowd grew, settling on blankets and lawn chairs, scores of women in couples and groups relaxed among a few men, one who danced with his daughters.
The theme continued with Jules Morrow, a singer and pianist who, when she’s not performing, runs body-image workshops called “Beauty Redefined.”
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Published Feb 17, 2012 09:08:03PM
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It’s a way, Morrow said, to discard modern stereotypes of female beauty and understand and embrace who you are.
In “Uncharted,” Morrow sang, “Now I have too much to hold, everybody has to get their hands on gold and I want uncharted.”
Then came Toby, an Australian singer with an unfortunately dropped acoustic guitar held together with gaffer’s tape and a story of driving nonstop from Calgary, Canada, only to have her van break down in Loa, about 20 miles up the road.
“It’s been a bit of a s--- of a day,” she said, then launched into her strong, soaring vocals. My favorite was her cover of Etta James’ “I’d Rather Go Blind”:
“I’d rather go blind, baby, than to see you walking away from a child,” Toby belted.
Toby earned a standing ovation and accolades from Sister Dottie: “Wasn’t she magnificent?”
As the red rock cast its tint into the clouds, it was time for the noisemakers, Salt Lake City’s Sister Wives — decidedly not the ones in Texas or Short Creek.
Lead singer and rhythm guitarist Mona Stevens, sided by bassist Jani Gamble, lead guitarist Jesse Luckett (also a fabulous singer) and drummer Amy Boettger, kicked into blues and rock ’n’ roll with precision and power.
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