Patricia Wilder cuts a striking image with a black Stratocaster strapped over the shoulders of her sapphire satin suit, her blond locks pulled tightly to the back of her head-yet she stood on stage rather stiffly at the beginning of her March 18 performance at Biscuits & Blues in San Francisco. Perhaps she was nervous, which is understandable. Wilder had been playing around town as a sideperson with various blues and funk bands since she was in junior high school, but at age 47 she was finally stepping out on her own doing her own thing, with her own band and her own songs, and this was the second gig of her solo career and her first as a headliner.
Whatever butterflies might have been present quickly disappeared. Soon, Wilder was moving her shoulders in time to her biting, rhythmically assertive guitar lines. Later, she stepped off the stage and strutted into the crowd, hunched in a gunslinger stance as she played brittle shards of fast-fingered blue notes with a pick.
Wilder knows how to shake her moneymaker, as Elmore James used to put it. She’s also a commanding soul-blues vocalist with a husky contralto that she uses to create an alternately tough and tender effect and a strikingly accomplished guitar stylist. She has a percussive touch that suggests a Texas upbringing, although she’s a San Francisco native. Striking a string simultaneously with her pick and the tip of her index finger, she at times creates a snapping effect reminiscent of Johnny “Guitar” Watson and Albert Collins, but her approach is subtler than those of the two late guitar-slingers. Miss Your Groove, the strongest track on her debut CD, Sweet Love, even finds her playing Wes Montgomery-like octaves.
The Fenix is an music supper club. Dinner is served daily at the venue. When you purchase your ticket on our website or the Ticketleap.com site, a reservation is automatically made for you.
When requesting seating for a party larger than your ticket purchase, please inform guest who would like to be seated with you to include in the comment section they would like to be seated with your party. We will try an accommodate your request.
There is a $15.00 per person minimum at the Fenix during the shows.