Elle Mannion | January 31, 2025
If you want it, Faye Webster’s Tiny Desk can offer an escape. Featuring her longtime band and a string quartet, Webster guides us through a swooning and sweeping set culled from her quickly growing catalog.
Webster’s Underdressed at the Symphony was inspired by just that: Buying last-minute tickets to the symphony orchestra in her hometown of Atlanta and finding the experience otherworldly. She performs “But Not Kiss” and the title track from that album. Webster is a gentle but captivating performer in this space, at times grooving with her locked-in band. But she also appears to be in a trance of her own, like on the Atlanta Millionaires Club cuts “Jonny” and its spoken-word reprise. The horns heard on those original recordings gave everything a brassy warmth, but here Trey Pollard’s string arrangements enhance this Tiny Desk’s dream-like quality.
SET LIST
“In A Good Way”
“But Not Kiss”
“Underdressed at the Symphony”
“Jonny”
“Jonny (Reprise)”
MUSICIANS
Faye Webster: vocals, guitar
Noor Khan: bass, backing vocals
Matthew Stoessel: guitar, pedal steel
Nick Rosen: piano
Charles Garner: drums, percussion
Ellen Riccio: violin
Danielle Wiebe Burke: viola
Stephanie Barrett: cello
Annie Leeth: violin
TINY DESK TEAM
Producer: Elle Mannion
Director/Editor: Kara Frame
Audio Technical Director: Josh Newell
Host/Series Producer: Bobby Carter
Videographers: Kara Frame, Maia Stern, Joshua Bryant, Sofia Seidel
Audio Engineer: Andie Huether
Production Assistant: Ashley Pointer
Photographer: Estefania Mitre
Tiny Desk Copy Editor: Hazel Cills
Executive Producer: Suraya Mohamed
Series Creators: Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson
VP, Visuals and Music: Keith Jenkins
#tinydesk #nprmusic #fayewebster
NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concerts is a popular video series featuring live, intimate music performances by diverse artists, from major stars to up-and-coming musicians, recorded in the small workspace of Bob Boilen’s NPR office in Washington, D.C.brought to you by SloppBoxx.Com.
11:28 I keep coming back to this simple ending flourish, just 👨🍳💋
Her introducing her band is so cute she seems so nice and sweet
I need a cigarette after this performance of Jonny😢
10:10
that pianist ooooof
woooooooooooooooow
11:28 the most beautiful part of this tiny desk, and this one have many of that moments, the armony there is just clean and perfect closure for that song
this is one of my favorite tiny desk ever.
i love how faye’s cadence on jonny reprise becomes almost uncanny compared to the album version. disregarding the instrumentation, the way she delivers those lines makes it feel like an entirely new song.