Blowfly Captures Crowd

Making his first local appearance in the 20-odd years that he’s been doing what amounts to a black, XXX-rated version of Weird Al Yankovic’s shtick, cult hero Blowfly (a.k.a. hit R&B; songwriter/performer Clarence Reid) wowed the capacity crowd at the Lingerie on Saturday. Freely basing his routines on the Seven Words That You Can’t Print in a Family Newspaper, the tuxedoed semi-legend displayed the sort of wit not often found outside junior high school bathrooms and perhaps best enjoyed when accompanied with a screw-topped bottle of wine.

Backed by a workman-like octet and a pair of wiggy, working-girl dancers, this fly guy ain’t much of a vocalist--which of course doesn’t keep the Lionel Ritchie and Michael Jackson parodies from coming, no matter how limp. ‘Twas so artless, it bordered on--actually it belongs in the same room as--performance art.

Opening act Rudy Ray Moore, himself an umpteen-year veteran of the Chitlin’ Circuit, specializes in similarly unprintable retellings of such famous works from the black oral tradition as “The Signifying Monkey” and “Shine On the Titanic,” peppering the presentation with jokes, one-liners and scabrous jailhouse toasts. Perhaps most famous for his “Dolomite” character, which he parlayed into a hit series of early ‘70s party albums, Moore is probably best appreciated as a link between the aforementioned oral tradition and the rap artists of the moment.