It was a marvelous musical weekend and it began Friday night at Darwin’s in Marietta GA with Diane Durrett and one version of Soul Suga, which included Sheryl Harper on drums and Yoel B’nai Yehuda on keyboards, plus a bass player and saxophone player. It;s a good thing “Ain’t nobody gone blind looking at the bright side,” according to Diane’s song because it was blazing at Darwin’s!

Durrett is a compact bundle of energy, just bursting with feeling. She grew up not far from the club, in East Cobb, but she can hold her own with any of the acts that come to Darwin’s to perform from all over the country. She has the crowd with her from the first, and the group, while they at times struggled a bit to get the communication down perfect, did a great job.

It takes a powerful voice to front a band that includes keyboards, bass, drums, . guitar and saxophone when you are the only vocalist, but Diane can doe it. She even got the crowd to be her background singers on several songs .including a rousing “I’ll Take You There” and incendiary “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

Aside from the covers and “The Bright Side,” Durrett performed her own “Butter’s in the Skillet” and the beautiful “Be Someone’s Angel,” While we were only there for the first set,  I hear it continued to rock long after we had to leave.

I was somewhat surprised to see Darwin’s still standing when we returned Saturday evening. Soul Suga delivered some sweet musical treats, and a wonderful time was had by all!