Jess Sah Bi and Peter One Make Connections at The Basement

“The place we were dreaming to come is Nashville,” said Ivory Coast-born singer, songwriter and guitarist Jess Sah Bi as he kicked off Saturday night’s set with fellow Ivorian musician and longtime musical partner Peter One before a packed house at The Basement. Jess Sah Bi, a 61-year-old veteran of West African folk-pop influenced by country music, joined Peter One, who is 62, here in that dreamed-of Music City to perform songs from their newly reissued 1985 masterpiece Our Garden Needs Its Flowers. The record is a superb example of internationalist pop that reveals the duo’s debt to North American musicians like Simon & Garfunkel, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Crosby, Stills & Nash. In a city where folk, rock, pop and country collide and re-form in fascinating ways that increasingly make the case for Nashville as a hotbed of world music that never loses sight of local traditions, the pair’s 15-song set at the show organized by local arts nonprofit FMRL gave the audience (The Spin included) an exhilarating primer in the unity of all people and all music. 

The story of how Our Garden Needs Its Flowers made its way to the American listeners who have embraced its message of peace, hope and unity is as fascinating as the music itself. Cut in early 1985 at JBZ Recording in Abidjan (one of the first private professional recording studios in Ivory Coast), Our Garden turned Jess Sah Bi, already a well-known musician who had made his television debut when he was 15, and Peter One, a university student ambitious to make the big time, into beloved stars in West Africa. Our Garden became symbolic of a vanished era in the history of Ivory Coast, a country that would be ravaged by economic and social instability after a 1981 recession changed its sociopolitical landscape. The new reissue of the album, curated by Los Angeles record label Awesome Tapes From Africa, restores its sonic integrity and illustrates the way pop ambitions inform local traditions.

Unfortunately, we only caught the last few minutes of the opening set by Nashville singer-songwriter/producer/indie label head Loney John Hutchins. From the little taste we got, it looked like he brought a slight hint of Jonathan Richman vibes to his multilayered pop with help from Brian Kotzur on drums and Michael Rinne on bass. We were able to dig in for the second set by Flying Burrito Brothers-influenced country-rock band Teddy and the Rough Riders, who expertly swung Gram Parsons-style shuffles. On a night when country music and its many offshoots provided a jumping-off point for musical exploration, Teddy and the Rough Riders provided context for the music of Jess Sah Bi and Peter One.

When the pair took the stage, we immediately caught the difference between their personas. While both are gentle and commanding, Jess Sah Bi in his brightly colored shirt led the banter as he played to the audience, joking about Peter One's predilection for love songs. We could visualize the young musicians learning the subtleties of stagecraft as young men in Ivory Coast. Both left their native country in the mid-’90s as the political situation continued to unravel. Peter One has lived in Nashville since 2013, while Jess Sah Bi currently makes his home in San Francisco.

Armed with their acoustic guitars, the duo sang selections from Our Garden in beautifully harmonized tenor voices. The down-to-the-ground spirituality of songs like “Clipo Clipo” and “Kango” mesmerized the audience. Working variations on basic chord progressions that Paul Simon and Stephen Stills would approve of, Jess Sah Bi and Peter One sometimes varied the pattern with well-placed seventh chords. This lent their politically tinged songs a bite that was, we thought, perfectly in tune with their message, which acknowledges conflict and loss without losing sight of the spiritual core of their music.

The duo was joined for the last part of their set by a crack Nashville band that included drummer Rob Crawford, guitarist Sean Thompson, pedal steel wizard Paul Niehaus and former Cate Brothers Band bassist Ron Eoff. Thompson provided licks that recalled the great work of Ivory Coast guitarist N’Guessan Santa, who played on Our Garden Needs Its Flowers and its 1987 follow-up Spirit in 9. (The latter album’s “Blidji” came near the end of the set.) Niehaus was tactful, while Eoff and Crawford provided rock-solid backing.

Jess Sah Bi and Peter One paid tribute to their North American influences by nailing a version of country icon Don Williams’ Bob McDill-written 1975 tune “(Turn out the Light and) Love Me Tonight.” Coming after their impassioned performance of the Our Garden track “Apartheid,” it embodied a view of pop music that honors both the weighty and the pleasurable. They ended the night with “Midnight Special,” an early-20th-century folk tune that they learned from CCR’s version on 1969's Willy and the Poor Boys. “Midnight Special,” which has also been recorded by folk legend Lead Belly and bluegrass singers Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper, is partly about oppression, but there was joy in Jess Sah Bi and Peter One’s rendition.

As we went out into the night, we mused on the relationship between folk music and pop, a topic we find rich and intriguing. Jess Sah Bi and Peter One’s music draws upon many traditions within those schools of thought, and it’s a welcome quirk of the information age that their timeless work will live on thanks in part to technology. But they connected with The Basement’s audience in real time, a mode of transmission that will never go out of style.

See our slideshow for more photos.

In The Spin — the Scene's live review column — staffers and freelance contributors review concerts under a collective byline.