Lu Mitchell keeps fun in her 'folk'

Septuagenarian songstress mines headlines for satire

 By Lawson Taitte / The Dallas Morning News

 They'll probably be singing Lu Mitchell's songs around the fire in summer camp around 2049. That's if by then young campers sing about old women caught growing marijuana or young women aspiring to be misbehaving White House interns.

 Ms. Mitchell and her group, Catch-23, performed at the Pocket Sandwich Theatre on Wednesday. Her fans were out, singing along with every chorus. You've never seen so many silver-haired groupies in T-shirts with performer's logos.

If Elaine Stritch sang like a cross between Lotte Lenya and the Kingston Trio, she'd be Ms. Mitchell. She calls herself a folk singer, but her taste runs to topical satire - more rueful than biting. She sets the headlines to old tunes and comes up with songs such as "The Bimbo Connection," which satirizes presidential affairs, with apologies to Kermit the Frog.

The singer, who is 75, worked as a secretary for 29 years and hated every minute of it. She led off with a song about a boss stuffed down a paper shredder to prove it. Other topics that tickle Ms. Mitchell's funny bone are blue-light specials, mammograms and gynecologists.

Actually, Ms. Mitchell sings better than she writes comedy. She scattered songs by others throughout her second set. Among them was Tom Lehrer's "National Brotherhood Week," which has more bite and exploits wittier rhymes than Ms. Mitchell's own material.

It seemed, though, that performing other people's songs gave Ms. Mitchell inner permission to cut loose. She was rhythmically freer and used words with more relish in interpreting them, particularly a vamping "Hard Hearted Hannah."

The most impressive of Ms. Mitchell's own tunes was a serious one. "The Irish Blessing" has a lovely lilt to it. The performer and her band made you want to hear it again.

The Ackermans, Bob and Sally, opened the show with a group of songs they've sung at festivals all over Europe and the United States. Mr. Ackerman takes off from a country style, blending it with folk and rock elements. Ms. Ackerman occupies a spectrum ranging from sultry to homespun. They're proficient musicians, but their messages are so uplifting they seem closer to the era of Irving Berlin than our own.