Carlene Carter [Little Love Letters] 

This is not the sort of album i would buy nowadays, i guess very Shania Twain-ish, too much yee ha Country, i'm sure i would be put off listening to the samples of the first few tracks, however, this was acquired in a day when i was newly delving into Country music [1993], one of my very first Country disc purchases, it was all very new, i guess in a way i had more of a naivete about me, i was eager to lap up all types of new genres [ i was newly getting into Blues and Folk at the same time], the musical world seemed to be a wonderful oyster to explore, and this just seemed better than it probably was at the time, but i've played it a good dozen times since, and it's seeped into my heart, some of the themes are quite touching, and i have a soft heart, plus the tunes are excellent, so it gets to stay in my collection, i'm glad for the diversity i have developed, plus i'm glad that i have these albums in my collection that are almost 'anomalies', things that are 'just not me!', my deepest advice is explore!, take a genre of music you hate! [for me it's Rap right now], and delve into it until you start to find something you like, it has saved the shrinking of my musical brain.

Carlene Carter is American, she has the distinction of having Johnny Cash as her Step-Father, she's now 57, how time flies, she made this disc in 1993, the photographs are great, one of the reasons i was attracted to the album, showing a picture of Carter on the front, i guess a fairly wide angle lens, as her lower half tapers off, the theme of course is on the 'letters', and it shows stamps throughout, with franked dates, i love the strong blue against the washed out white.

Almost all of these tracks i really loved, 1-6, 8-9 & 12, at times this music can bring tears to my eyes, it was tracks 3 & 12 that really hit the spot, two upbeat and faster songs, here's my thoughts on both,
3 Wastin' Time With You - This quickly became my favourite track on the album, very much piano driven [Benmont Tench], and i guess a Honky Tonk rhythm, with Carter's husky growl in the appropriate places, the bridge into the third verse is great, and there's a low key organ in the background, the outro is all piano, a nice intense ending, it's the overall rhythm of the whole thing that gets me, it gives a great buzz.
12 Hallelujah In My Heart - A Gospel song i guess, but a sort of BlueGrass HoeDown sort of thing, like you would get in Country dancing, lots of banjo and mandolin, and fiddle in the second verse, and a beat that is not driven by drums, but rather by a chorus of hand-clappers, as you would get in Square Dancing, the dancers standing around encouraging those who are involved in the action, it's the chorus which is so infectious, the harmonies are tremendous, and the backing singers complement Carter so perfectly, not merely boosting volume, but they sing different enough for there to be a sort of terracing of voices, it's so very good, the lyrics are about a sinner getting saved, and there's a sort of gospel revivalism about the whole thing.

Iris DeMent [My Life] 

This was a great disc to buy, one of those purchases where i was purposely trying to branch out into new genres, trying to get away from the usual stuff i always get, i would certainly classify this as Country first, but it also has elements of American Folk and Gospel, she has a real southern twang to her voice, she comes from Arkansas originally, and she was influenced by old time hymns in the Church she grew up in, so there's a lovely Gospel flavoured subject to things, maybe not necessarily religious in words, but in her observations and themes, for someone not exposed to DeMent, the first time listening to this album might give a strong indication of negative things, certainly death and sin, and regret and purposelessness, but i find it very positive and upbeat, that through the hard times there's fortitude to stand tall, in the title track DeMent laments, 'My life, it's tangled in wishes, and so many things that just never turned out right', it's a real theme of the album, it's certainly very realistic looking, instead of kidding ourselves that life's one happy go lucky round of good memories, this disc also appeared in my Blog in 2010 [25th May 2010].

Iris DeMent is American, she's now 51, she recorded this disc in 1994, the front cover photo [by Kelley McCall] is a bit naive, a photograph made to look like in a photo album, and a theme throughout the booklet, using old photo's of DeMent, like the one on the back.

It was tracks 4-6 that were superb, and i guess it's the middle one that hit me the most, called 'No Time To Cry', each of the three verses deals with a tragedy, whether it's her Father dying, an ambulance siren, or the bad news on the television, the 'solution' is to keep busy, life has a tendency to make you cynical, you're older and you just haven't got time to cry, a very acoustic song, her voice really shines out of the instrumentation, she plays acoustic guitar herself, the verses are great, dripping with sadness, and when the chorus comes in, there's an upbeat determination and fortitude to stubbornly endure, her voice rises into a major key, it's a great moment each time the chorus comes in, in the last verse the instrumentation quietens down, and it enhances her voice, and of course it heightens the power of the song when the instruments comes back in with force later in the verse, also i love the way DeMent treats the outro, she ad-libs 'no time to cry' three times, you can hear the way she accentuates things differently, a great way to finish a great song, one of her greatest compositions.

Here's Iris DeMent singing 'No Time To Cry' on YouTube.

Lucinda Williams [Car Wheels On A Gravel Road] 

One of my most favourite Female Singer / Songwriter discs, it's hard to pigeon-hole her, she started out quite Bluesy, i suppose delved into Country somewhat, but i guess can be called Americana, she certainly has a way with words, especially on the title track, she isn't bothered if things don't rhyme, and if her words are a bit clumsy with the music, there's real feeling behind the words, some of the tracks towards the end sound a bit filler, but there are gems aplenty, this is her very best disc in my opinion, already a yearly 'regular' in my Blog [29th July 2011 & 26th March 2010].

Lucinda Williams is american, she's now 59, Car Wheels On A Gravel Road is her fifth album, it came out in 1998, the front cover photograph [by Birney Imes] is of some small wooden house down a dirt road, i saw stuff like this when i was in the boonies in Maine, a load of timber just knocked together on a huge piece of land, and in this shot Christmas lights up outside [though some people liked to put coloured lights up all year round, and were nothing to do with Christmas], i like the road which naturally leads the eye to the house, and the lettering is slanted, very nice.

The great tracks were 1-3, 7 & 9, with 3 & 9 the best of all, track 9 'Metal Firecracker' is superb, i heard that a metal firecracker is a tour bus, even though in the song it talks about being 'your biker', so i assumed it was about a motorbike, though i conclude the opening words 'Once we rode together in a metal firecracker', rather than 'on' means it's some four wheeled vehicle, i think also 'rode' rather than 'drove' put me on the wrong track, a really upbeat rhythm to it, the crack on a drumstick and we're away, the opening lead guitar has a lovely twangy sound [0:01-0:15], Williams vocals are magnificent, there's a real Country backwoods feel to it, she gets strong and passionate in the right places, halfway through the first verse 'Once i was in your blood, and you were obsessed with me', love the lyrics, and it's a song about the madness of infatuation, and 'secrets', the second verse starts 'Once you held me so tight, i thought i'd lose my mind', the emphasis on 'lose' is crazy, i love that, the chorus is great, Gurf Morlix comes in on harmony backing, makes the chorus stronger melodically than the verses, and the twang of his guitar is really expressive here, one of the very best tracks on the album.

Here's Lucinda Williams singing 'Metal Firecracker' on YouTube.

Various Artists [Country Gold '40 Classic Country Tracks']

Well these compilation discs prove the point that i'm really into everything, and i'm still trying to expand that 'everything' into a wider scope, especially this year, and here's one of the results of that effort, i do like Country Music, it's just that i'm off put by Honky Tonk, Line Dancing, and to a lesser degree Bluegrass, this compilation sticks to late 1950's to early 1990's, with chart hits being the overall theme, it's a good compilation to have, there's some of my favourites on here. 

On this listen i liked quite a number of tracks, some are actually new to me, because in the past i haven't been much of a Country Music fan, so it was nice getting to know some new friends, other tracks i know, but i don't have a great outlet to listen to them, so it was good to renew their acquaintance, and some of course i plainly don't like, the tracks i enjoyed the most were 1-3, 5, 7-8, 13-14, 20, 23, 26 & 38, and i guess the cream of those dozen were 5-6, 23 & 26, and here's a short synopsis of each of these tracks,
5 Dolly Parton - Jolene, in essence this is not really a Country song, written by Parton herself, it uses a flavour of Indian rhythms and music, especially in the female backing singers, and the rumbling percussion mimics the sound of Indian tablas, it's the complex picking acoustic guitar in the right ear that's incredible, and isn't Jolene such a lovely name?.
6 Johnny Cash - Ring Of Fire, it's those Latin trumpets that go halfway towards the greatness of this song, i just love them, they keep coming back again and again, the other half is Cash's dark baritone growl, i'm not a Johnny Cash fan, but he has a certain way with the way he can just hesitate slightly to superb effect, the song has a chuggy rhythm which is incredible.
23 Bellamy Brothers - Let Your Love Flow, a song that i heard in the charts during the Seventies, and i really liked it then, in one YouTube video the lead singer really looks like Lieutenant John Dunbar / Kevin Costner of Dances With Wolves fame, haha, with strumming guitars, and a male duet in the chorus, there's a strong forward momentum to the whole song.
26 Lee Greenwood - The Wind Beneath My Wings, a song i first heard from Bette Midler, i was in a Video Rental and this song came over the radio, and even though i had finished and it was time to leave, i stayed looking through the racks just to listen to the song, the chorus is powerful, the Lee Greenwood version is quite similar, acoustic guitars, piano, and especially a string orchestra, the words are really meaningful, again not really a Country song as such.

Various Artists [Shelter - The Best Of Contemporary Singer Songwriters]

This is a double disc set, a digipak gatefold thing, on the whole i hate these things as there's no plastic to protect the card cover, but this is a good set, i bought this expressly because it has a whole load of very interesting Artists, and the idea was to use this album as a springboard to delve into the most interesting Artists on these discs, and even though i've done some of that, i actually find that this is a worthy album to keep for its own sake, there's almost a concept to the whole thing, and the inner booklet provides a really good biography of the Artists, and their prospective albums. 

This album was the brainchild of Dan Storper, collecting together 28 contemporary Singers, who mainly write their own material, there's a certain World Music feel to the front cover [artwork by Nicola Heindl], 18 windows of different simple images, mainly revolving around music, and also in wonderful bright colours, with a wood grain effect on the back, the Artists / track listings nicely stand out, one gripe is there's no track numbers, makes it hard to know what song you're listening to, but i added tracj listings with my own pen. 

Well what can i say about some of these tracks?, my favourites are 2, 4-5, 7-8, 10, 13-14, 16, 19-20, & 24-26, with the very best being 4 & 19-20, and again i would like to give a short synopsis of these three tracks,
4 Pierce Pettis - No More Sad Songs, 
19 Ellis Paul - Last At The Table, 
20  Patty Larkin - Island Of Time,