Pop Notes

Women seek their share in bro-country music world

"The Blade" by Ashley Monroe
"The Blade" by Ashley Monroe

Is country music having female trouble?

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"Heartbreaker of the Year" by Whitney Rose

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"Faded Gloryville" by Lindi Ortega

Much has been made of the diminishing presence of women on country music radio, Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood notwithstanding. The issue even made it to ABC-TV's Nashville, when Connie Britton's character, country queen Rayna James, illuminated that reality to an aspiring female singer James wanted to sign to her label.

Billboard magazine's June 8 issue noted that female artists represented just 8 percent of singles' sales and airplay in 2014, half what it was in 1991. That number also includes groups with prominent female vocals, such as Lady Antebellum and Little Big Town. Album statistics weren't any better.

In its May 26 issue, radio trade publication Country Aircheck Weekly quoted consultant Keith Hill as saying if stations want to build the audience, "take females out." Hill says female listeners would rather listen to male singers. Lambert and Martina McBride, among others, set Twitter afire in response.

But airplay or no, the fact remains that female singer-songwriters have made the best and most interesting music of the past several years -- such as Ashley Monroe's Like a Rose, Brandy Clark's 12 Songs, Rosanne Cash's The River & The Thread, Kacey Musgraves' Same Trailer Different Park, Iris DeMent's Sing the Delta and Lindi Ortega's Cigarettes and Truckstops.

They haven't stemmed the tide of popularity of bro-country (Luke Bryan, et al.), but these artists -- and others -- deserve to be heard.

Here are four albums worth your time and money.

• Ashley Monroe, The Blade, Warner Bros.

She has sung backup for rocker Jack White, co-written hits with Miranda Lambert, sung with Blake Shelton and teamed with Lambert and Angaleena Presley in Pistol Annies. But when Ashley Monroe recorded Like a Rose, the 2013 album was a huge critical hit, landing on many best-of lists that year.

She is back with another sterling collection, loaded with songs that are progressive and timeless. The Blade is lusher, but the emotional edge may cut even deeper. There are times you can hear hints of Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and the progressive musicality of Emmylou Harris. But if Monroe embraces a retro influence and shimmer, she forges a clear path of her own with intelligent, interesting songs.

On "If the Devil Don't Want Me," she takes a sinner's perspective in a song and performance that weeps for a jukebox. "I'm Good at Leavin'" is about a woman who can't -- or won't -- settle down and the emotional fallout she causes. "You're a fool for not believin'/I'm good at leavin'." On the jaunty boogie of "Winning Streak," she sings "If losing's a game/I'm on a winning streak."

The album's devastating title song is one of Monroe's best: "I let your love in, I have the scar/I felt the razor against my heart/I thought we were both in all the way/But you caught it by the handle/And I caught it by the blade." She delivers the lyric with deep pain and resignation.

• Whitney Rose, Heartbreaker of the Year, Cameron House

Classic country meets jazz and '60s pop on Whitney Rose's infectious, freewheeling album. In the Mavericks' Raul Malo, she finds a sympatico producer who shares her musical spirit and frames her voice perfectly.

A keening steel guitar adds another emotional layer for "The Last Party," one of eight originals. The outstanding title song, with its rockabilly reverb guitar, finger snapping and bass, along with Rose's sexy vocal, evokes the come-hither and drama of Peggy Lee and the sultriness of Maria Muldaur. "Ain't It Wise" is subtle and strong, haunting and lovely.

"Be My Baby," one of two cover tunes, is a duet with Malo. Ronnie Spector (The Ronettes) sang the original hit and there is a Spector-esque quality that comes out in Rose's voice. This performance makes one yearn for an album of Malo and Rose duets.

Rose also delivers a heartbreaking cover of Hank Williams Jr.'s "There's a Tear in My Beer."

• Lindi Ortega, Faded Gloryville, Last Gang

On her latest, Lindi Ortega's torchy, twangy and soulful music becomes more expansive over an often bleak, emotional landscape riddled with doubt; it is one where hope is worn down by the pains and rigors of living, stuck in the habitual pattern of faded love.

"There ain't no stars in faded Gloryville/We've chased our dreams into the ground," she sings on the album's title cut, a phrase that could refer to career and relationship. But the album is a kind of fatalistic realization that the greatest doubt is about love itself. "And I wonder if I moved on/Would you notice I'm gone," she laments on "Someday Soon."

Ortega's savvy cover of the Bee Gees' song "To Love Somebody" owes more to Nina Simone than to the Brothers Gibb.

Faded Gloryville shows growth and progression; Ortega keeps pushing the boundaries with her fine followup to the superb Cigarettes and Truckstops.

• Maddie and Tae, Start Here, Dot/Republic

Madison Marlow and Taylor Dye threw a funny raspberry at bro-country with their hit "Girl in a Country Song," which mocked country female stereotypes in those songs.

Like Taylor Swift before them, the women write and sing about matters of the youthful heart -- first love, breakups and going out on your own for the first time. Those experiences are still fresh in their minds and it shows in the songs, especially on "Downside of Growing Up."

The Dixie Chicks also are a strong harmonic/musical influence as well, especially evident on the alluring "Waitin' on a Plane." On "After the Storm Blows Through," the women offer emotional support and comfort to a friend weighed down by grief. The vocals, lifted by a sweetly mournful fiddle, ring true.

On "Shut Up and Fish," one can't help but laugh when they deliver lines such as "He pulled up in a red Corvette/salmon shorts and a white V-neck/I said, wow you know how to dress for a city guy."

That blend of sweetness and sass, delivered with superb harmonies and a dollop of humor, bodes well for this duo's future.

Email:

ewidner@arkansasonline.com

Style on 08/30/2015

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