Pre-Festival Concert:American Folk: Pow Navarro

Nodding toward the surroundings of Schuler’s Books & Music, Pow Navarro crafted his set around a dream he had, each song a different part of the story. Navarro’s emphasis on the place and night being for stories ended up influencing the words of Chris Smit and Ralston Bowles later.

Navarro’s story began as many stories do: boy meets girl. “Shangri-la Banquet” showed this Calvin College student’s gifted, finger-style guitar work, punctuating the songs turning point verse with guitar body drumming. Like David Wilcox’s more jazzy songs, Navarro also perhaps gives you a glimpse of what Jason Mraz would be like solo at a coffeehouse show—a jazz-influenced folk singer with scat singing a significant portion of the music.

The story set continued as the boy started going out with the girl but “encountered challenges.” In a percussive guitar style like Peter Mayer, “Stories Under the Sea” brings you into those humorous but difficult moments in a relationship. Here there was some John Mayer showing through, along with Mraz, on Navarro’s use of falsetto. Beautifully matching the song’s conclusion, Navarro provided his own fade on the repeated line, “The sun seems so far away.”

Navarro then brought us to the sad moment of truth in the story: they break up. The boy had cheated on the girl, and so after the break up, the boy gets drunk and realizes (“this is going to seem random) that he wasn’t a very good Christian.” He needs to ask for forgiveness. “Could You Be Messiah to Me?” despite all of the sins. With beginning guitar work reminiscent of David Wilcox, Navarro uses a more fluid chord style—a little bit like James Taylor doing a worship song. Yet, that’s no simple, repeated phrase praise song. “Could You Be Messiah to Me?” rephrases the question using the many names and roles of God, exploring the very difficult assumption that God would care about “a sinner like me.”

Finally, the girl does forgive the boy. They get married, this is the wedding song, and they live happily ever after. “As We Danced” remains in the ballad tempo of “Could You Be” but more in line with the style of the first songs, the jazzier influences which seem to be Navarro’s more natural style. Here I heard some similarity to what Lucid Fate is doing. (Jeremy, Josh, and Elijah happen to be with me at the Festival).

As Navarro continues with school, but begins to get a reputation around town, I’m hoping that people outside of Grand Rapids are going to get chances to hear this remarkable young singer.