Two of country music’s leading artists - Miranda Lambert and Brad Paisley - have new singles from forthcoming albums. Carlene Carter, a woman with an outstanding country music history, celebrates her heritage with a new album, Carter Girl.Miranda Lambert “Automatic” RCA A
Saying “Miranda Lambert is single-handedly saving country music” is fraught with danger. From whom is she saving it? Why would we presume it needs saving? Her new single makes that hyperbole feel like fact, especially when the latest and greatest Nashville-stamped bro-country tunes on the radio bellow in your ear.
That is when “Automatic” will - because Lambert is a certified star - slide in among the heavily-rotated Luke Bryans and Jason Aldeans and blow them all away.
This deceptively powerful sing-along anthem has a point of view (Have we lost the idea that working for something has value?), offering an outlet for an expertly articulated voice. Does it sound like old country with pedalsteel or extra-weepy fiddles? Not really. Does it hold tight to the once sacred idea that country songs should mean something and be about something other than tipping back a beer can? Yes and yes and yes again. Her next album, Platinum, is due June 3. - WERNER TRIESCHMANN
Brad Paisley “River Bank” Arista B+
This song is out months before the follow-up to 2013’s Wheelhouse will be available. While Paisley is independent as an artist can be within the confines of Nashville, he knows the game is finding a rain-making radio hit. So it’s probably not right to read the slight “River Bank” as a gesture of retrenchment after the ambitious and controversial Wheelhouse. Critics of “The Accidental Racist,” Paisley’s ungainly collaboration with LL Cool J, were primarily opportunists who knew little of Paisley, Wheelhouse or country music. Sure, Wheelhouse stumbled in places, but anyone with a passing knowledge of Paisley’s body of work understands he has earned the right to take risks.
Listen to how Paisley turns the weak sauce of “River Bank” into more than a party-by-the-water good-time anthem. There’s the clever wordplay that most Nashville hacks can’t even begin to match anymore, and the banjo is on steroids. If this is Paisley playing it safe, that is fine.
- WERNER TRIESCHMANN
Carlene Carter Carter Girl Rounder A
Carlene Carter never seemed comfortable with her pedigree. As the daughter of Carl Smith and June Carter,granddaughter of Maybelle Carter and stepdaughter of Johnny Cash, she started performing when she was 4 years old. Her solo career, which began in earnest in the late ’70s, pushed the limits of what was acceptable to Nashville traditionalists.
It’s fair to say she probably fit in better with the New Wave rockers she was courting in London (she was married to Nick Lowe 1978-1990) than Nashville’s neo-traditionalists. With Lowe producing, she made one great album that defies categorization (1980’s Musical Shapes), dabbled in heroin and occasionally reconnected with her deep roots.
Now on the cusp of 60, she has released a pure country record of songs written and performed by her kinfolk in the long ago by-and-by. It would be tempting to dismiss it as a cynical commercial ploy if it weren’t so genuinely poignant and obviously heartfelt.
This isn’t the first time she has recorded Carter Family material, but it is the first time she has made it sound convincing. She’s helped out by the taste of producer Don Was and guest vocalists such as Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Vince Gill. While I’m a little freaked out by “I Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow,” which prominently features a choir of ghosts - Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash and her aunts Helen and Anita - the overall effect is of benediction and homecoming.
Hot tracks: Carter and Kristofferson’s “Black Jack David,” “Me and the Wildwood Rose,” the only Carlene Carter-penned song (she originally recorded it in 1990) and “Lonesome Valley 2003.” - PHILIP MARTIN
Style, Pages 33 on 04/22/2014