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	DEBBIE DAVIES WELL TRAINED

"We promised you a train song, so here it is," Debbie Davies announced as her band kicked up the chugging snare drum and funky bass of "Chicago Line," a tune by her early career mentor John Mayall. The occasion was Davies’s first gig at Union Blues, the new club in Worcester’s Union Station that provides views of passing freight, Amtrak, and commuter trains through windows behind and to the right of the stage.

As a fan of both blues and railroads, I had to bite the whole enchilada. So last Friday, my wife, Laurie, and I boarded a 6:05 p.m. Purple Line train at South Station and were delivered comfortably to Union Station 75 minutes later, minus the hassle of traffic and tolls. We dined at the nicely appointed eatery called Union Station the Restaurant in the station’s first floor, and despite a snafu with our order that was compounded by a poor recovery by the establishment’s management and staff, we made it upstairs to Union Blues in time to get a good table.

The club is an enjoyable space reminiscent of Cambridge’s defunct Nightstage. Sight lines are excellent, seating is plentiful, and the wait staff is attentive. There’s also a small menu of snacks that runs from crackers and cheese to stuffed crab. And the crowd is more diverse than in the typical Boston/Cambridge club.

Davies’s first number made it clear that the sound system has been smartly designed. Glass behind and facing a stage typically equals a sonic nightmare, but as she increased her energy and volume during the night, every stinging guitar note, keyboard line, and turn of her voice had clarity and punch without reaching punishing levels. And she proved to be a fine roadhouse entertainer with a capable voice, beginning with numbers, including the Texas shuffle "Let Me Love You Baby," that drew on what she’d learned backing the late Albert Collins from 1988 to ’91 — guitar solos punctuated by terse string bending and chromatic resolutions, with quick slides up and down the neck. She also blended expressive scalar runs with fluid chords and deft, emotive vibrato. Davies shook the most out of every note in her ballads, especially in her variation on Magic Sam’s "I Don’t Want No Woman" and tunes by Mayall, the 70-year-old British blues pioneer who plays the Regent in Arlington next Thursday (see "State of the Art," on page 8 of "8 Days a Week"). Davies pays tribute to Mayall with her most recent album, Key to Love (Shanachie).

The trains also performed well. Long twin-locomotive CSX and Providence and Worcester freights switched behind the band and a Purple Line commuter zoomed into the station. Two snags, though: the last train leaves for Boston at 11:40 p.m., before the music ends, and an obnoxious drunk plagued riders on our return trip until police escorted him off in Framingham.

(Debbie Davies returns to Union Blues this Friday, March 5; call 508-767-2587.)