PUTNEY — “I've come here tonight to set your souls on fire,” The Beehive Queen tells her audiences.
And that's what she plans to do Saturday, April 19, at 7:30 p.m., when Next Stage Arts Project presents Christine Ohlman & Rebel Montez.
The flashy, platinum-blonde singer/songwriter Christine Ohlman, a.k.a. The Beehive Queen, is the longtime vocalist with NBC's Saturday Night Live Band.
When she's not working at NBC, she sings with her own band, Rebel Montez, which includes Massachusetts guitar legend Cliff Goodwin (acclaimed for his work with Joe Cocker and Robert Palmer), Larry Donahue on drums, and Michael Colbath on bass.
Together at Next Stage they'll spotlight songs from Ohlman's discography of six CDs.
AllMusic's “number-one secret weapon in America's gal-singin' sweepstakes,” Ohlman is a consummate singer who has collaborated with musical greats such as Al Green, Bruce Springsteen, George Harrison, Sting, and Ronnie Spector, her early role model.
Ohlman's recordings include The Hard Way (1996); Radio Queen (1997); Wicked Time (2000); Strip (2003); her career retrospective Re-Hive (2008); The Deep End (2010), which received five end-of-year national top 10 mentions; and the upcoming The Grown-Up Thing (2014).
She also sells a DVD of her 2011 concert Live Hive.
Ohlman, a musicologist of note, edited legendary Rolling Stones producer and manager Andrew Loog Oldham's autobiography, 2Stoned (Random House, 2003), and contributes to Elmore Magazine.
She got her job at SNL in 1991 after being invited to perform at a wedding. The groom was Lorne Michaels, producer of SNL. She reportedly impressed him, and she became lead vocalist on the show.
During her long tenure as lead singer for the Saturday Night Live Band, Ohlman saw a lot of pop culture history go down. She was there on Oct. 3, 1992, when, in protest of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, Sinéad O'Connor tore to shreds a photo of Pope John Paul II.
She was there on Oct. 23, 2004, when Ashlee Simpson was caught lip-synching a performance and then fled the stage.
She was there when alum Jimmy Fallon hosted Christmas 2013 and brought musical guest Justin Timberlake, who essentially became Fallon's co-host, along with Sir Paul McCartney, Madonna, Barry Gibb, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
She's seen so many of the show's highs and lows, and befriended many stars before they were famous.
According to Next Stage Executive Director Maria Basescu, great things have been happening in Ohlman's career lately, including appearing with her old friend Jimmy Fallon on his “Tonight Show,” being named top female vocalist at the website Alternate Roots, and playing at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
“I think she's an amazing talent and we are so lucky to be getting her to Putney,” Basescu said.
This year, Ohlman has appeared at such diverse venues as the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, the W.C. Handy Festival in Florence, Ala., and on concert stages with Brian Wilson, The Righteous Brothers' Bill Medley, Bonnie Bramlett, and Elvis Costello.
Driven to dazzle
Ohlman says she has always wanted to perform.
“I was one of those little girls who performed shows in front of my family at any event,” she explains in promotional material. “At 16 I formed a band with my brother, who was a year younger than me. Bob Shad, the owner of Mainstream [Records], flew down from New York City to hear the band; he signed us the same day. We were in the studio practically before we knew what hit us, recording a version of Al Kooper's 'Wake Me, Shake Me' (1966). The next thing we knew we were on the charts and I was in heaven.”
On the record's B-side, a song Ohlman wrote on the way to the recording session, “I Don't Know Why,” was reissued in the United Kingdom in 2012 as a part of Mainstream Records's compilation, All Kinds of Highs, on the Ace label.
Where did Ohlman get the name The Beehive Queen?
“Have you ever seen me?” she asks, referring to her trademark, piled-high hairdo. “I was inspired by the girl groups of the sixties, especially the Ronettes. I teased my blonde hair into a beehive in honor of Ronnie Spector and never looked back. I am happy now to call Ronnie a personal friend of mine. It's funny how things come around.”
She adds: “It's all part of my style,” but allows that it can wind up in “pretty ratty” condition. “I dress in semi-vintage clothes and I used to always wear cocktail dresses, so you see I have a look that I carried forward throughout my career.”
Connection with Billy Straus brings the heat
Now making her third Next Stage appearance, Ohlman says she became acquainted with the Putney venue through its founder, Billy Straus.
“We both had a mutual friend in the late musician T-Bone Wolk, who lived in Vermont. Straus saw me when I was performing in a benefit concert for T-Bone in New York City, and he asked if I would like to perform at Next Stage. I'm glad I did, because I love the space.”
Ohlman, originally from the Bronx, New York City, adds that she is always thrilled to perform in intimate theaters such as Next Stage.
“I think small venues, which are springing up all over the country, in churches and small theaters, are the future of independent music, in a business that has been increasingly corporate,” she says.
She explains that she wants to keep the independents' fires burning: “I have no desire to be like Cher, giving her one-more-final-farewell tour, with all its fireworks and extravaganza. Those elaborate shows are also prohibitively expensive. I prefer something simpler. In these small theaters like Next Stage, a musician can connect intimately with her audience.”
Ohlman says she particularly likes audiences in Vermont. “You can see them carefully listing to the music I sing,” which Dave Marsh, an original editor of Rolling Stone, has called contemporary rock R&B.
Ohlman says she agrees with him: “It's guitar-driven music with roots in the blues.”
Most of the music Ohlman performs in concert is her own. She describes herself as not a prolific songwriter, as it takes her a long time to write a song.
“But I greatly enjoy it. I write mostly about love, what I call the good, the bad and the ugly. My songs are not social commentary. But through my music I can connect with an audience in a visceral way. I believe I and my audience in a concert form an intense partnership.”
Love, loss, courage, and joy
Ohlman says she prefers not to dwell on her personal life, though she admits to having known some intense emotions in the past few years.
“Our guitar player [founding member Eric Fletcher], who was very central to our group, died suddenly,” she says. “Also, as many people know, my husband [and producer, Doc Cavalier] died recently. The songs on Deep End were written about him. Those songs may be about loss, but they also are about the courage and joy to love.”
But then, Ohlman notes that her group always gives emotionally intense performances: “I mean that in a melodic way, not like, say, a Kurt Cobain. Each song we perform has a real story to tell, and I am blessed with a wonderful band with high level of musicianship to help me tell those stories.”
As a parting shot, Ohlman says she loves performing with all her heart: “My most joyous moments have been those in front of an audience, and I tell myself all the time how lucky I have been to be granted this wonderful life.”