Music / “Under the Influence with DJ Gosper”, Shortis and Simpson. At Smith’s  Alternative, September 17. Reviewed by HELEN MUSA.

THIS is the third in Shortis and Simpson’s series, “Under The Influence”, following seasons with former Seeker Keith Potger and political journalist Karen Middleton.

The idea is for Shortis and Simpson to pay homage to their chosen guests through music and, where possible, to find links, both personal and musical.

But in tackling the life of blues singer and composer, Dorothy Jane (DJ) Gosper, the satirical duo have perhaps taken on just a bit too much, for Gosper’s musical presence is extraordinary and her life experiences dark and confronting, quite hard to fit in to the framework of sophisticated irony associated with Shortis and Simpson.

Referring to her own eclectic musical tastes, Gosper may be, on her own admission, “a marketing nightmare”, but her deep, blues contralto and her virtuosity on the harmonica combine with a uniquely relaxed presence to take over the room.

This is a finely-wrought evening of entertainment, in which the audience is treated to everything from an opening Nina Simone number to the riotous finale, “Minnie the Moocher”.

The first part of the evening is given over to Gosper’s musical roots in her hometown of Merriwa in the upper Hunter where, on local radio, she first heard Miriam Makeba.

With an artistic family, including a musical father and a sister who owned harmonica records by Sonny Terry, she had a youthful vision of stardom which saw her singing the Big Bopper’s “Chantilly Lace” out loud in the hope that Johnny Young might swing by the Golden Highway to Dubbo in search of talent.

The highlight of the show’s first half is a home movie masterminded by her sister, Lyn, where the siblings perform to the Perkins-Griffin song, “Boppin’ the Blues”.

The subtext of the evening is the tragedy in Gosper’s life, so that when she tells us the sad songs are the best, we believe her.

As if to illustrate that, she sings Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces,” but that was immediately undercut by Simpson rendition of the maudlin Cline number, “Three Cigarettes in an Ashtray” — a joke, but one that fell a bit flat.

As the evening progresses, we are introduced to Hoskinstown, near Canberra, where Gosper has lived and performed with several groups, not least the Blues Cowgirls, who once called on Simpson to teach them yodelling – “not rocket science,” as she demonstrates.

One of the jokes of the evening is to set Gosper and Simpson against each other, so that Gosper offers up one of her band numbers, “The Hot Flush Blues”, to be given three Simpson makeovers — first the Cockney version, then a Marlene Dietrich version and finally the Marilyn Monroe version, concluding in “Happy Birthday, Mr Shortis” — it actually was his birthday.

The sympathetic audience was full of fans and followers of DJ Gosper who knew of her struggles with personal tragedy and illness. Perhaps, as she said several times, there was a bit of “over-sharing”, but this performance brought to centre stage a strikingly original Canberra performer who, once seen, cannot be forgotten.