Connie Smith and Marty Stuart onstage at the Grand Ole Opry’s 99th birthday celebration, October 11, 2024. (Photo from Connie Smith’s Facebook page)
Reviews by David McGee
LOVE, PRISON, WISDOM AND HEARTACHES
Connie Smith
Fat Possum
Let’s hear it for the octogenarians! In the past year Sylvia Tyson (83), Jack Jones (86), Taj Mahal (82) and now Connie Smith (82) have produced some of the most memorable work of their storied careers. Aided by the spot-on production of husband Marty Stuart, with the impeccable backing of his Fabulous Superlatives (along with notable guest appearances by Hargus “Pig” Robbins on the 88s and Gary Carter on steel), Connie confidently assays a dozen tracks–including “The Other Side,” her lacerating, self-penned steel- and honky tonk piano-drenched missive addressing a two-faced paramour, recorded in 1965 on her first studio album–drawn mostly from ‘60s contemporaries such as George Jones (the bonafide heartbreaker, “Beneath Still Waters”), Loretta Lynn (“World of Forgotten People”), even Perry Como (“Seattle”). Stuart couches Connie’s solid, mature vocals—deeply invested emotionally, exquisitely phrased, assertive or tender as the narratives demand—in discrete backdrops with unobtrusive soloing, delicate washes of strings and weeping steel, and strictly sotto voce background support. The most atmospheric setting is saved for the wanderlust narrative of “The Wayward Wind,” with whispering strings cushioning Smith’s anguished reflections and Marty’s B-Bender howls adding a surreal southwestern edge to the soundscape. Connie Smith is country incarnate. –David McGee
‘The Wayward Wind,’ Connie Smith, from Love, Prison and Heartaches, produced by Marty Stuart
***
ON THE TRAIL WITH THE LONESOME PINES
Hilary Gardner
Anzic Records
Jazz fans may well recognize silky-voiced Hilary Gardner as a founding member of the close harmony trio Duchess, twice named Vocal Group of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association (JJA). On her new solo project, On the Trail with the Lonesome Pines, Ms. Gardner takes a bit of a different tack by emphasizing the intimate connections between jazz and western songs. Backed by the superb Lonesome Pines trio, she swings, sways and swoons through a dozen vintage western-oriented chestnuts referencing both the cowboy’s solitary way and its inseparable connection to the natural world’s allure, romance and poetry. What has jazz to do with any of this? Consider that Frank Loesser co-wrote “Jingle Jangle Jingle (I Got Spurs),” here given a jaunty shuffle with Justin Poindexter adding a tasty Les Paul-like guitar solo to the proceedings. Benny Carter and Gene DePaul penned the lyrics to Ellla Mae Morse’s 1942 million selling “Cow Cow Boogie,” appropriately rendered with a frisky, sultry swing. But especially on beautiful ballads (notably the languorous “Twilight on the Trail,” dating from 1936), Ms. Gardner’s delicate, winsome approach rises into an exalted realm of feeling and experience common only to the finest interpretive singers. Saddle up! –David McGee
‘Twilight on the Trail,’ Hilary Gardner, from On the Trail With the Lonesome Pines
***
LET’S WALK
Madeleine Peyroux
Thirty Tigers
Appropriate to the artist depicted on the cover in a low-light, meditative pose, Madeleine Peyroux opens her first album since 2018’s Anthem with a serene, heartwarming missive titled “Find True Love.” A tenderly picked acoustic guitar fashions a tuneful, laconic riff seconds before a feathery, whispery voice ascends over Andy Ezrin’s silky keyboard stylings, singing of bucolic pursuits along the way to rediscovering love.
‘Blues for Heaven,’ Madeleine Peyroux, from Let’s Walk
As it turns out, “Find True Love” is only superficially about rekindling passion and more specifically about engagement and understanding, inspired as it was by the reaction to George Floyd’s murder. So does the song set the stage for the long-player’s greater purpose of addressing the temper of the times, and not always in terms common to Ms. Peyroux’s signature cabaret-ish aesthetic. The title track, for example, takes its cues from southern gospel and the Civil Rights Movement alike with a soulful background chorus, stabs of electric guitar adding emphatic energy to the stomping arrangement, and the singer adopting harder, more staccato phrasing to get the message across, “We climb the mountainside/where seeds were planted/oh so long ago/it’s deep…” The whole album is deep indeed, from the Billie Holiday-ish cool groove of “Blues For Heaven” to the spoken-sung album closing PSA advocating healthy living, “Take Care.” Deep, like Madeleine Peyroux. -–David McGee
