Rachael Yamagata at City Winery

Rachael Yamagata was two years old when her parents divorced. Although she says she is from Arlington, Virginia, she spent a lot of her youth shuffling between her mom's apartment in New York City and her dad's residence in the Washington, DC area. While attending university in Chicago, Illinois, Yamagata had one year of piano lessons, a spiral notebook full of original songs, and an ambition to try the arts as a career. She briefly relocated to New York to become an Italian theater major but then returned to studies in Chicago, where she became the vocalist for the funk band Bumpus. Yamagata recorded and toured with the band for six years before launching a solo career in 2001. Since then, she has collaborated with Jason Mraz, Rhett Miller, Bright Eyes, Ryan Adams, Toots and the Maytals, and Ray Lamontagne, her songs have been featured on numerous television shows and films, and she has performed at two Barack Obama presidential events. Yamagata's fifth and most recent studio album is 2016's Tightrope Walker. Yamagata is now based in Woodstock, New York.

Vocalist/pianist/guitarist Rachael Yamagata headlined two nights at City Winery, where she performed backed by two fellow Woodstock residents. Like Yamagata, guitarist Conor Kennedy (Steely Dan, Amy Helm, Donald Fagen) and bassist Zach Djanikian (The Brakes, Amos Lee, Amy Helm, Donald Fagen) switched instruments as the songs necessitated. With a husky and booming voice, Yamagata sang sad ballads, poignant mid-tempo pop songs, and several light rockers, all with equal comfort and conviction. The mature and thoughtful lyrics matched with the stark arrangements made the songs intimate and captivating. That same simplicity, however, led to a generic softness where the dynamics fell short of their potential. This was pleasant and very safe mom-rock, fine for a small club gig but not the threshold that Yamagata will achieve on a larger platform.