IT'S A LITTLE after 6 on a perfect evening at the Inner Harbor when the great Jr. Cline and the Recliners launch into Van Morrison's "Moondance," the familiar chords echoing across the still water, inviting an entire downtown to grab a beer and let go of another steamy workday.
Tonight's gig is the annual deck-opening party at McCormick & Schmick's. Around patio tables heaped with crab cakes and steamed crabs, preppy guys with cell phones clipped to their belts sip Coronas with lime, and women in sundresses laugh and puff Virginia Slims menthols.
Judging by the smiles and head-bobbing that greet "Moondance," lots of these people are here to see the Recliners, who've been playing kickout rhythm-and-blues and soul tunes for 20 years.
"I'm an old Baltimorean, and if you're from Baltimore, you know who Jr. Cline and the Recliners are," says Kevin Bonner, the restaurant's general manager. "My best memories of my single days are of being in bars when Jr. Cline was playing."
It's hard to believe that the marvelous Daryl Jr. Cline himself just turned 50.
The years have been kind to him, though. His face is still unlined; his spiky hair is still full and brown. A hip "soul patch" nestles under his lower lip. The gritty voice, with its hint of the West Virginia foothills, still soars and fills up a room.
Ask if he ever tires of all the late nights and boozy crowds, if he ever thinks of doing something else now that he's on the AARP mailing list, and he smiles and shakes his head.
"I'm not sure what else I could do," he says. "I guess I could dig a ditch. But I go nuts if I'm not playing. ... I have to play."
So that's what the Recliners do - they play. From May to Labor Day, their busy season, they play 20-plus gigs a month: bars, outdoor festivals, corporate functions, anywhere there's an audience and a paycheck.
"It's funny," he says. "I run into people who say: 'Oh, my God, we used to see you, but we have kids now.' So they don't get out as much. ... But we're still out here."
After "Moondance," the band jumps into a stylized version of "Reason to Believe" by Rod Stewart. Then they do "Take Me to the River" by Al Green and "Into the Mystic" by Van Morrison and a foot-stomping "But It's Alright" by J.J. Jackson.
As always, the Recliners - tonight it's Anthony Setola on bass, Arif Duranni on keyboards, Chris Hutton on trumpet, Al Williams on sax, Paul Soroka on sax and keyboard, Mike McHenry on guitar, Mark Merella on drums - play without a set list, taking their cues from their veteran frontman.
Watching him in jeans and a blue Hawaiian shirt, the familiar Fender Telecaster slung high in front of him, you realize again what a heavyweight Daryl Jr. Cline is.
He's opened for Tina Turner and Wilson Pickett and Sam and Dave. He's sung with Archie Bell of Archie Bell and the Drells. Still, the thing to remember about Jr. Cline is that he never got caught up in the frenzied dash for stardom, never measured success in terms of gold records and the trappings of celebrity.
All these years later, he says of the Recliners: "We're just a party band. A bar band." And as always, he seems just fine with that.
The other thing you should know about Daryl Jr. Cline: He has a heart the size of Wyoming.
When the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks took place, he and his wife, Lynn, were shaken to their core. For 10 years, the Recliners played a New Year's Eve gig at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, and they had come to love New York.
Two days after the attacks, they went down to Lower Manhattan to see the rubble that had been the World Trade Center. But 10 blocks from the site, they turned around and returned to their hotel.
"Too painful," he says now. "It was just all smoke. It freaked us out. That landscape without the towers is too bizarre now."
But Jr. Cline was determined to help the families of the attack victims in some way. Then Lynn had an idea. Years earlier, Jr. had written an inspirational song for a friend stricken with cancer.
Why not rework the song and release it as a single, Lynn said, with the proceeds earmarked for the families of the 9/11 victims? So a few weeks later, 30 area musicians gathered in a Rockville studio and "Give Them Wings" by Daryl Jr. Cline and Friends was born.
Now, sitting here on a deck along the water, with the sun slipping low in the sky and the Recliners on a break, Jr. Cline seems utterly content with his life.
As we look out at the audience, still buzzed from the last set, I remember what Jr. had said earlier about his fans: "They waited all week for this, to go out and have a good time. And I want to give 'em a show. I want to entertain them."
For 20 years, he's been pretty good at it.