'Chasin' Dem Blues': A show in tune with its subject

The enjoyable Chasin' Dem Blues, playing in a vibrant production at the Delaware Theatre Company, has an apt title for two reasons: The show chases away the blues by singing the blues - a time-honored way to exorcise them. And it chases down the blues in order to document the history of the musical form.

What's not apt, but hype, is the show's subtitle: Untold Story of Paramount Records. The show, written and directed by Kevin Ramsey, focuses on the company as a way to explore the history and dynamics of the blues. Indeed, Paramount was among several labels that popularized the genre in the 1920s. Its story, though, is anything but "untold"; you can find out plenty just by punching the company's name into Google.

In any case, Ramsey has done his research. He's written - and at Delaware Theatre Company, directed - a show that mixes a blues revue and a narrative about Paramount, which has a curious history. It was among several labels started by the Wisconsin Chair Company, a furniture maker in that state whose line included wooden cabinets for phonographs. The company pressed and distributed records as an incentive to buy the machines and cabinets.

Paramount, begun in 1917, became a chief dispenser of so-called "race music" - songs by black artists, marketed to the nation's African American communities. Jazz, of course, was a component of race music, along with the blues.

Ramsey's script offers Paramount anecdotes and pop songs of the day from its catalog, delivered primarily by three of the five-member cast, calling themselves the Blues Executors: Doug Eskew and Jannie Jones, two electrifying singers with rich, earthy voices and winning personalities, and the limber, quick-fingered pianist Nate Buccieri, who also sings. The other two cast members are singer-guitarist Eric Noden and Mike De Castro, who plays percussion on the upper level of Matthew Myhrum's set.

That setting conjures a railroad depot, and in John Stovicek's sound design, trains seem to come and go; the rear wall of the set is a large screen, where film and handsome sepia-toned photos are sometimes projected.

The show, overamplified when the narrative becomes muffled in the musical accompaniment, sneaks in some non-blues snippets from the early 20th century amid great renditions of "Let the Good Times Roll," "St. Louis Blues," "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean," and others. Ironically, Chasin' Dem Blues is weakest when it explores the blues itself, with throwaway epiphanies - the blues bends but never breaks, it comes from the bowels of this Earth, that sort of claptrap.

One character declares early on that the show will not tell stories chronologically - a decision that scrambles its narrative and fuzzes the context of the stories. But one thing is clear, as the script avers: The blues was "born when the West African shoreline vanished from sight" and germinated in American paradox and strife.

And performed with class, as it is here, it can make you want to sing.

Through May 1 at Delaware Theatre Company, 200 Water St., Wilmington. Tickets: $35-$49. Information: 302-594-1100 or www.delawaretheatre.org. EndText