It’s almost too easy to label Grace Potter as, well, Amazing Grace.
Yet if you took any one of her amazing accomplishments — her self-titled album that debuted a new-and-improved power-packed Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, her recent duet with Kenny Chesney on his song “Hemingway’s Whiskey,” and her knock-’em-dead appearances at the recent Americana Music Festival in Nashville, Tenn. — you’d find it awe-inspiring. So how can we not use the moniker?
“I was sitting on JetBlue and all of a sudden, our video was pumping through the plane,” Potter said. “This has all been about 10 years in the making, and I’m just trying to absorb it.”
That’s because — at last — Potter said she and her band are finally able to be themselves thanks to the mix of players and the support of Hollywood Records, which signed them in 2007. The Vermont-based group is now a five-piece with Nocturnal veterans Scott Tournet on lead guitar and Matt Burr on drums joined by bassist Catherine (Cat) Popper from Ryan Adams and the Cardinals and rhythm guitarist Benny Yurco of the GPN side project Blues and Lasers.
That shift has made all the difference in the band’s sound, which Grace and her bandmates have consistently worked to control themselves.
At last, Potter can also have the image she’s always wanted, too.
“I hear people say, ‘I know the real Grace. The one who wears flannel and no makeup,’” Potter said. “That wasn’t the real me.”
The real woman is something more akin to the lovely Ariel in the movie “The Little Mermaid” but with musical sensibilities that run the gamut from alt-country to rock and beyond.
“Ariel was my complete goddess and idol,” Potter said. “It’s another odd fit most people would think is strange.”
But it’s not when you consider the vibrant musical background that has contributed to her development as an artist.
“As a songwriter, if you listen to some of my early music … it’s straight out of the Americana songbook,” she said. “When I was [young] being in the choir and singing spiritual and gospel music didn’t register for me. Now I know it’s a facet, a piece, of who I am.”
Grace Potter and the Nocturnals
» Where: The National Zoo, 3001 Connecticut Ave. NW
» When: 9 p.m. Friday
» Info: Age restrictions apply; sold out at press time; tickets may be available from online resellers
» Online: The Corin Tucker Band comes to D.C.’s Black Cat this weekend. Check out our preview at washington examiner.com.
