Blues queen returns to the Treehouse

By Luciano Marano • June 20, 2018 4:30 pm
Photo courtesy of the Treehouse Café | Sarah Potenza - called “A Janis Joplin-Aretha Franklin hybrid with a mic” by Rolling Stone - will return to the Treehouse Café at 8 p.m. Thursday, June 21.
Photo courtesy of the Treehouse Café | Sarah Potenza - called “A Janis Joplin-Aretha Franklin hybrid with a mic” by Rolling Stone - will return to the Treehouse Café at 8 p.m. Thursday, June 21.

Sarah Potenza — called “A Janis Joplin-Aretha Franklin hybrid with a mic” by Rolling Stone — will return to the Treehouse Café at 8 p.m. Thursday, June 21.

Tickets, $18 for reserved table seating, are on sale now for this 21-and-older show; visit www.treehousebainbridge.com to purchase.

After Potenza’s spellbinding blind audition yielded a four-chair turn on NBC’s “The Voice,” a visibly moved Pharrell Williams told her she was “giving this generation something they’ve never seen before.”

Potenza is to the blues what Adele is to pop: A colossal-voiced singer who merges her old-school influences with a modernistic sound.

Her last album, “Monster,” solidifies endless Janis Joplin vocal comparisons, but also colors between the lines of Memphis blues, Nashville Americana, New Orleans funk and L.A. punk. Its lyrics are personal and personally therapeutic, as she empowers herself through tunes denouncing industry naysayers and embracing her full-figured, boisterous self.