When we last heard from Bernadette Seacrest & her Provocateurs a couple of weeks back the group was headed to Eddies Attic for the CD release party for the group’s latest release, The Filthy South Sessions. It was a success. So much so that the show sold out and many of the folks who made the long trek to Decatur were turned away at the door.

Hoping to appease a few of the people who were left out in the cold that night, The Highland Ballroom Lounge is giving away limited edition autographed posters at the door for Bernadette and Co.’s show this month as they continue their monthly Wednesday night shows on January 27.

First 15 people through the door will get a limited edition autographed poster.

Describe yourself in three words.
Reclusive, very serious, lovey-dovey all-the-time.

Who — dead or alive — would you most like to meet?
Pee Wee Herman

Who would you most like to slap in the face?
My mama.

What song do you wish you had written?
“Stairway to Heaven.”

Elvis Costello or Elvis Presley?
I can’t choose. Well, okay, this is kinda hard… Presley.

LP, CD or MP3?
Damn! Another hard question. LPs, I suppose, they’re all good or should I say CDs and MP3s serve my purpose better. Power to the people.

If you could start one trend, what would it be?
Stilettos… all the time

If you could end one trend, what would it be?
Small children with pink hair.

With whom would you most like to play a game of spin the bottle?
I would’ve wanted to play with Lux Interior, I’m so sad. But, so, in that case, my husband. Yep, my husband.

Bernadette Seacrest transcends the blues in life and song

The Filthy South Sessions is driven by femme fatale’s noirish confidence

Bernadette Seacrest looks like trouble.

The 45-year-old femme fatale and singer who fronts the trio known simply as Her Provocateurs, has the face of a 1950s pin-up model and the tattoos of an old-school, streetwise punk. Every drop of ink on her body – from the barbed chain around her neck to the brilliant colors that sleeve her arms – tells the story of a fiercely independent woman who has suffered the highs and lows of life on the fringes to carve her own musical niche.

Her pure, angelic croon seems more likely to be found in the pages of a pulp crime novel than in the here and now. Having grown up in Venice Beach, Calif., she’s filled with tales ranging from being bullied by Dogtown skateboarders in the late ’70s to dating Jane’s Addiction bassist Eric Avery, whom she calls her first love. But there’s a dark side to her past as well, one that’s marred by battles with a heroin addiction that, had she failed to overcome it, would have stopped her from ever finding the confidence to sing for an audience.

With Bernadette Seacrest and Her Provocateurs’ new CD, The Filthy South Sessions, Seacrest’s haunting presence collides with songwriter/guitarist Charles Williams’ heady arrangements in a sound that skirts the boundaries of jazz, blues and lounge music. “Swing noir” is the clever catch phrase she likes most. The songs simmer with a sparse, spectral sound that builds on the complex chemistry between Seacrest and Williams. “Charles is a very cerebral person and I am the polar opposite of that,” she explains. “That’s what’s really good between us and that’s what creates tension. Everything I do comes from the gut … and my hips, and he’s in his head. It’s amazing that we can do what we do without killing each other,” she laughs. “It’s like a pelvis thing and it’s a cranium thing.”

A few years after kicking her drug habits in September ‘97, 35-year-old Seacrest was living in Albuquerque, N.M. She had moved there to clean up and was looking for some sort of artistic outlet. She had no prior singing experience, but was intrigued by the prospects after being prodded onstage one night. “When I was a user, drugs and booze gave me confidence in some ways, but in other ways I was dwarfed emotionally,” she says. “I had been sober for a few years, my confidence was up and I had a friend who was in this great band that had recently broken up. One night he jokingly said, ‘Come sing with the remaining members of my band.’ So I thought about it and called him the next day and said, ‘OK, I’m going to do this.’”

The friend was jazz performer and songwriter Pat Bova. Together they played in the rockabilly roots band the Long Goners, and later formed the backbone of Bernadette Seacrest and Her Yes Men, who released two albums – a collection of mostly standards titled No More Music by the Suckers and a live CD that followed a year later.

The two worked well together, but without warning Seacrest moved to Atlanta in June 2006 to “follow her heart,” she says. It wasn’t long before she was appearing at out of the way venues around town with Williams, best known as a founding guitar player for Col. Bruce Hampton’s Aquarium Rescue Unit and the main songwriter for local jazz group the Bonaventure Quartet. Kris Dale, who plays bass with Hampton’s Quark Alliance as well as the Bonaventure Quartet, soon filled out the lineup. Williams and Seacrest both refer to Dale as “the glue that binds them together.” The trio’s early sound snaked through loungy renditions of such standards as “Fever” before easing into haunting rearrangements of such recent numbers as “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails.

Over time, Williams crafted several songs with Seacrest in mind, all of which appear on their debut release, The Filthy South Sessions. The CD consists of entirely original material that often supplements the sparseness of the gypsy-like guitar, bass and torch singer lineup with various strings, light percussion and horns.

The Filthy South Sessions perplexes with its simple arrangements extracted of anything overtly jazz- or blues-inspired. In some instances, the disc eerily lingers before jumping to life with a rocking pace. Such songs as “The Tango Below,” “Empty Streets” and “Cabbagetown Girl” unfold with an unquestionably Southern sound arrived at purely by innuendo. “Working with Bernadette is a lot like working with Bruce Hampton,” Williams says. “He would always tell me what he didn’t want me to play, but never what he wanted, so I was always searching for something. And it turned out that he had no idea what he wanted, either!” Williams laughs. “He just wanted to see what I would come up with. Bernadette kind of does the same thing. She said, ‘Let’s keep it small and I don’t want any jazz, and no blues.’”

The resulting songs follow these stylistic guidelines, so much so that their naked and unorthodox approach is what makes the album memorable. But their obscurity could be a detriment to any kind of commercial success. For Seacrest that’s not such a bad thing. “I don’t like the idea of making records to appease anyone other than myself,” she laughs.

No need to travel to Paris to partake in this group’s sumptuous offerings. Bring your beret, snap your fingers and find yourself transported to a different time and place as you nod along to such walking bass-driven saloon noir tunes as “Who’s Buying?” “G-d’s Been Drinking” and “Pass the Tourniquet.”

Seacrest’s slinky vocals stay very much in the Billie Holiday tradition, but when she shifts into Bob Wills territory on “The Rain Has Stayed Away,” with Dale doing catlike pedal-steel duty, it’s clear that her voice is a malleable instrument comfortable with a variety of related genres. She’s sensually sad on “Empty Streets” and “Cabbagetown Girl”—the latter a song Tom Waits might have written in his early days, if he’d been based in Atlanta rather than L.A.

Hints of subtle percussion, organ, accordion, violin and horns add a burnished sheen to this organic brew, creating a stripped-down vibe reminiscent of Sinatra’s “In the Wee Small Hours” album, without detracting from Seacrest’s lush-life vocals and mood-indigo stylings. 3 STARS—Hal Horowitz

With a voice that promises everything, including maybe 20 years in the pen, vocalist/co-producer Bernadette Seacrest conjures a noir underbelly of a world on The Filthy South Sessions, with help from co-producers Charles Williams (guitars), who wrote all 12 tunes, Kris Dale (double bass, pedal steel) and guests. Williams’ steamy tangos, blues and rumbas don’t so much tell stories as sideswipe them (“I love you, but put down that gun”). “Babylon” recalls Leonard Cohen’s lyrical enigmas, and Seacrest delivers it with a seductive, Billie Holiday–esque plangency. Clearly, Seacrest knows what’s what and, deliciously, she’s in no hurry to explain it. (MM)

Not since Francine Reed settled here 25 years ago has a singer new to the Atlanta scene made such an indelible first impression as BERNADETTE SEACREST. The irony is that the jazz chanteuse is more popular in Europe than in her adopted city, but don’t expect that to last long. Seacrest sings torch songs with a fragile and haunting voice that is Billie Holiday cross-pollinated with Madeleine Peyroux. Both members of her two-piece band are alumni of Col. Bruce Hampton — former Aquarium Rescue Unit guitarist Charlie Williams and current Quark Alliance bassist Chris Dale. Seacrest, who moved to Atlanta from Albuquerque in 2006, didn’t even take up singing until six years ago. Catch her now before Atlanta finally discovers her. You’ll be struck first by her tattoos, then you’ll be captivated by her voice.

Just when it seemed like Bernadette Seacrest was fast on her way to taking Atlanta by storm as a torchy and tattooed seductress, coolly offering a blend of jazz-noir that’s fueled by the voice of a true siren, she vanished. Like trouble from a pulp fiction novel she slipped away from view without word of if or when she would return.

After a full year she’s back and fronting Bernadette Seacreast & Her Provocateurs, which in the past has featured Kris Dale (bass) and Charles Williams (guitarist) of the Bonaventure Quartet.

Seacrest and Co. play an hour-and-a-half set at Daddy D’z on Wed., Aug.13th, starting around 8:30 p.m. or shortly after sunset, which ever comes first.

You don’t want to miss this one because you never know when it’s going to happen again.

“My Man” begins with a vintage jazz sound and Seacrest singing in a sultry tone with a slightly Billesque inflection, then perks up at the end with robust horns and Bernadette letting out a wail before sliding back into that subtle sexiness. Songs like “Tango”, “Lullaby”, and the seductive “Body & Soul” have a similar mix of sensual chanteuse vocals, jazz noir rhythm, and blaring horns.

The stand out “Cold In My Bed” muffles Seacrest’s molasses-drenched velvet vocals and the band’s broody brass for a low-fi torch effect. Seacrest infuses new life and desire into Mama Cass’ “Dream A Little Dream Of Me”, and portrays a homewrecker with a guilty conscience in the simmering “Her Tears Break My Heart”. The howling “So Cruel” as well as the combustible “Sweet Salvation” really show off the strength, depth, and range of Bernadette’s voice.

As if she hadn’t already invoked the spirit of Billie Holiday several times on the album already, Bernadette successfully and flawlessly tackles the chilling “Strange Fruit” for the finale.