In the nearly six years since her last full-length studio release, Sara Evans has been divorced and remarried, appeared on Dancing With The Stars, written a novel, and struggled to stay alive commercially, in a radio environment that has been increasingly indifferent to female artists, particularly ones who are not blonde and under 30. Her career finally seems to be getting back on track, thanks to the success of her current single “A Little Bit Stronger”, which, thanks to its inclusion on the Country Strong soundtrack, has provided Sara with her first Top 20 hit since 2007′s “As If.”
Most of Sara’s recent singles have underperformed on the charts, and in her search for a style that radio would accept, her music seemed to be a bit unfocused. Regular readers will recall that I wasn’t terribly impressed with “A Little Bit Stronger” when I reviewed it back in September. As a result, I had some misgivings about her album. Originally slated for release in 2009, the album was delayed twice, and finally saw the light of day this week. Unfortunately, my misgivings have proven to have been well founded.
To a large extent, Stronger is the victim of poor production choices. Four tracks were produced by Sara with Nathan Chapman, another five were produced by Tony Brown, and one (“Wildfire”) was produced by Marti Fredericksen. Many of the songs such as “Desperately”, “Wildfire”, and “Life Without Losing” start out promising, but by the end of the first verse each falls prey to generic, occasionally bombastic production and over-processed vocals with too much reverb. None of the songs on the album are strong enough to overcome the production missteps. Particularly disappointing is “What That Drink Cost Me”, a beautifully written and performed song that I’ve been looking forward to hearing ever since a live version appeared on YouTube a year or so ago. Based on the live performance, I was expecting a traditional country weeper, but Evans’ and Nathan Chapman’s slick production drains most of the heart and soul out of it. That being said, it is the best song on the album, along with “Alone”, which is a standout ballad that deserves to be released as a single.
Closing out the album is an unnecessary remake of Sara’s 2001 hit “Born To Fly”. Billed as a bluegrass version, it doesn’t differ very much from the original other than being entirely acoustic. Though I usually like stripped-down versions, this one sounds too much like a demo recording and only serves to underscore how much better Evans’ music was a decade ago. Considering the length of time that fans have had to wait for a new album from Evans, they deserve more than the meager ten tracks offered up here. The fact that one is a remake of a prior hit is bound to make them feel cheated. The iTunes version does contain a bonus track “Cabana Boy” which is quite good, and should have been swapped with “Born To Fly” for a slot on the physical CD.
Even though my expectations were modest, it’s difficult not be disappointed in this album. Evans and her producers had nearly six years to get it right, and that should have been more than sufficient time to find some more interesting material than they came up with this time around.
Grade: C-
Stronger is available from major retailers such as Amazon and iTunes.
Terri Clark’s third album, released in May 1998, found the singer at the apex of her commericial success, but also at the peak of her ability to balance commercial considerations with showcasing her talents as a writer and interpreting the traditions of country music. Working exclusively with producer Keith Stegall this time out, Terri wrote or co-wrote half of the 12 songs here. How I Feel continued her run of platinum-selling albums, and was her second top 10 on the Country Albums chart.
The lead single ‘Now That I Found You’, a sweet-sounding testament to – you guessed it – finding the love of your life, sailed to #2 in the US and Canada. Then it’s back to her now-signature rowdy-girl sound for the album’s second single, and Clark’s first chart-topper. The spitfire in Terri’s voice on ‘You’re Easy On The Eyes’ is befitting of the biting lyrics.
‘Everytime I Cry’ peaked just outside the top 10 at #12, and featured a music video depicting spousal abuse. Though the lyrics don’t get into specifics one way or the other, the song was heralded for its message. A fourth and final single failed to make any headway, but deserved an audience nonetheless. ‘Unsung Hero’ sings the praises of appreciation of one who ‘works their magic quietly’. What starts out as a quiet, almost-acoustic production eases into a choir-filled bombast of sound half-way through, contrasting the simplicity of its message.
With most of the singles stacked on the first half, the second half allows Clark to showcase her music muscle a bit. My favorite from the set is ‘Getting Even With The Blues’, one of several songs from the writing team of Clark with Tom Shapiro and Chris Waters. Clark pours on her smokiest vocal to this elegant honky-tonk ballad in the piano-bar fashion. Likewise top-shelf are a punchy take on Kim Richey’s quintessential break-up tune ‘I’m Alright’ and the shuffling country sound of ‘This Ole Heart’.
Other tracks don’t come together so well. ‘Not Getting Over You’ is more in the contemporary mold, slowly morphing into a power ballad. Perhaps the layers of production are added to mask the fact that the lyrics are pretty weak and unsubstantial. This may also be the case with tracks like ‘Till I Get There’ and the almost-title-track ‘That’s How I Feel’.
Despite a couple of missteps, mostly sound-wise, How I Feel would be Clark’s strongest set of songs to date.
In David Bradley’s debut single, the protagonist makes one of those late night calls -the kind that usually take the form of a sophisticated, modern mating call in country music. Recent hits along these lines – ‘I May Hate Myself In The Morning’, ‘Need You Now’ – have proved the subject is still a meaty one. But in Bradley’s case, it is neither fueled by alcohol, nor bred by sexual desire. His reasons for calling are even more unfortunate. Awakened by a dream, he dials up his former lover to ask the devastating question ‘Is there something you can say, to make your memory go away?’
Amid a light production, led mostly by a plucking dobro that adds to the melancholy mood, and a desolate melody, we follow the man’s ‘blistering’ heartbreak through his broken conversation. Bradley’s urgent, edgy vocal is balanced nicely by Rodney Crowell’s high harmonies, which sound a bit in the distance.
An English-born former engineer for global oil companies, Bradley’s music has taken him from London to Siberia, before he finally settled in Nashville, where he’s been keeping heady company – Crowell certainly not the least among them. This song comes from the pens of Music Row heavyweights Rivers Rutherford and Gordie Sampson. If ‘Hard Time Movin’ On’ is any indication, like the company he’s keeping, Bradley seems poised to crank out many a great song himself.
Terri’s second album, released in 1996, followed along broadly the same pattern as her debut, balancing high-energy radio friendly entertainment with traditional roots. She co-wrote most of the material, most often alongside the established songwriting team of Chris Waters and Tom Shapiro, and the quality is consistently high. Waters also co-produced with Terri and Keith Stegall.
The first single was, however, actually a cover of the Warren Zevon song/Linda Ronstadt 70s hit ‘Poor Poor Pitiful Me’. Terri’s vibrant version (belying the dark lyrics) peaked at #5 on Billboard and #1 in Canada. The equally lively up-tempo Emotional Girl’ (written with Rick Bowles and Chris Waters) was another Canadian #1 and US top 10 hit. The title track and third single is a gorgeous mellow love ballad with a little more of an AC feel and a subtle string arrangement, which allowed Terri to show off her vocals, but radio was less receptive to Terri’s ballads than to her up-tempo numbers, and this peaked disappointingly low at #16.
The twangy ‘Something In The Water’ was the last single, but while it has a good groove and attacking vocal, it is not particularly memorable, and only just squeaked into the top 40. Equally twangy, but more memorable, is the ironic salute to an old ‘Neon Flame’ (written by Terri and Chris Waters with Chuck Jones), and perhaps this would have been a better single choice. I really like the catchy and uncompromising ‘You Do Or You Don’t’ (one of the few outside songs, written by Bob DiPiero and Karen Staley), and this too would have made a great choice as a single. Terri’s love interest isn’t quite committed to her, and she sets out an ultimatum, telling him firmly he either loves her, or he doesn’t:
Love ain’t followed by a question mark…
We’re not talkin’ brain surgery
The other song not written by Terri is the amped-up bluegrass of ‘Hold Your Horses’, a revival of a song written by Carl Jackson and Pam Gadd for the latter’s former band Wild Rose. ‘Twang Thang’ keeps up the energy levels, but is rather noveltyish. The mid-tempo ‘Not What I Wanted To Hear’ has a rueful admission to herself that the guy isn’t going to call.
My favorite song here is Terri’s solo composition ‘Keeper Of The Flame’, with its beautiful melody, excellent vocal, and downbeat lyric about a neglected wife desperately holding on to hope that things will somehow go back to the way things were:
I am the keeper of the flame
You only helped my build the fire
And it’s getting harder every day
To make our love burn with desire
Cause if I left it up to you
Only ashes would remain
Another outstanding ballad is ‘Any Woman’, where Terri gives us a sympathetic portrait of a woman’s heartbreak, suffered in silence:
Night can be so cold when a memory’s all you hold
Yeah, I know what she’s going through tonight
Any woman who’s been hurt by a man understands
It’ll take some time for her to find a way to love again
There is another great vocal here, balancing sympathetic advice to a man interested in the heartbreak victim, and sisterly empathy with the woman.
Just The Same has been certified platinum in the US and double platinum in Canada. This is an excellent record, full of fine material delivered with commitment.
Grade: A
It’s still easy to find, both digitally and on CD, with used copies being extremely cheap.
When I heard the lead single and title track of this album a few weeks ago, I was really looking forward to Jeff Bates’s religious album. I was disappointed to find that it was in fact only a six-track EP. (There is also a separate DVD with the same title, which includes live versions of the songs on the EP plus a handful of others.)
Theologically, the “rapture” is posited by some Christian denominations as the bodily lifting to heaven of the righteous in the last days, based on a passing reference in one of the Epistles. This album opens with an imagined narrative of ‘The Rapture’, as previously recorded by Jason Matthews, one of its writers, on his rather good Hicotine album in 2008, but Jeff’s version is better. A simple piano accompanies the testimony of one of those who has had “no time for Jesus” until he finds he has been left behind when his wife and children (in better favor with Heaven) . The vocal is great, and it does have some emotional power, but this is one that doesn’t quite work for me personally.
Jeff co-wrote the other three new songs. I’ve already talked about the mature and lovely title track (which he wrote with Matthews), and this is still my favorite track.
It really won’t be to everyone’s taste, but I was deeply moved by the tear-jerker ‘If You Could See Me Now’, which was written with Robert Arthur and Marcus Franklin Johnson. There is an understated but intensely emotional vocal as Jeff plays the part of an infant who has died and is speaking to his family from heaven:
If you could see me now
You’d see joy and laughter in my eyes
I’m swinging on a swingset in the sky
No you wouldn’t cry if you could see me now
Every single tear would be erased by the love that shines on Jesus’ face
Oh what a place
I never played with my brother and my sisters in the yard
I never was rocked to sleep in my mother’s arms
But the arms that hold me now are the same arms that made me
I know you miss me
I wish you could see your baby
If you could see me now
Even though you’re looking through a broken heart
You wouldn’t bring me back to where you are …
So don’t waste another moment
Worry about what might have been
Jesus loves me and you know I’m with him
It was inspired by the death of a band member’s newborn grandchild.
The same team (plus Kirk Roth) composed the far less memorable ‘Living Stones’ a tribute to those individuals who help in times of trouble. It drags a bit despite a gritty vocal.
There are two well-worn traditional numbers. Jeff gives a slow intense reading of ‘Wayfaring Stranger’. It’s not my favorite version of the song, but it offers a very convincing portrayal of a weary soul; where it falters a little, at least for me, is in lacking the sense of joy at finally reaching heaven’s rest. Black gospel style backing vocals come in quite effectively towards the end of the song, as they do on a rocked up and rather leaden take on ‘Life’s RailwayTo Heaven’, the record’s least successful moment.
This is a little more uneven record than I was hoping for, not to mention much shorter, but there are some great moments nonetheless.
By the mid-90s, Nashville had drifted back towards more pop-leaning music, but there was still room on radio playlists for more traditional fare. Two Canadian women — Shania Twain and Terri Clark, representing both ends of the spectrum — had their commercial breakthroughs in 1995. Twain’s crossover music was more commercially successful, but Clark’s self-titled debut, produced by Keith Stegall and Chris Waters, struck a chord with fans of traditional country, and sold quite respectably in its own right.
The sassy up-tempo “Better Things To Do”, which Clark co-wrote Tom Shapiro and Chris Waters, was her first release. Immediately successful, it set the tone for the remainder of her career; her most successful singles over the next decade and a half, were up-tempo numbers in a similar vein. It peaked at #3 in both the US and Canada, and it remains one of my favorite Terri Clark tunes. The same songwriting team produced Terri’s follow-up hit, “When Boy Meets Girl”, which also reached #3 on the US and Canadian charts.
For the album’s third single, Mercury chose the traditional ballad “If I Were You”, which is the finest song on the album. Written solely by Terri, it demonstrated her skill as a songwriter, in addition to her fine vocal talent. Very similar in theme to Reba McEntire’s 1986 album cut “If You Only Knew”, the song deals with a woman who seeks relationship advice from a single friend. Instead of offering tea and sympathy, the friend (Clark) advises her friend to try and go home work things out, because the single life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Though it reached #1 in Canada, “If I Were You” didn’t perform quite as well in the US, peaking at #8. In a trend that would continue for the remainder of Terri’s major label career, US radio programmers proved to be somewhat lukewarm to her ballads. This was certainly the case with Clark’s next single, “Suddenly Single”, another tune she wrote with Shapiro and Waters, which just missed the Top 10 in Canada, peaking at #11, and fizzling out at #34 on the US chart. While to this day I remain perplexed as to why “If I Were You” didn’t chart higher, radio’s resistance to “Suddenly Single” is somewhat more justified. It’s a rather pedestrian song, saved by Sonny Garrish’s excellent steel guitar work. I’d have preferred to see “The Inside Story” released to radio, though it was probably too traditional to have had any realistic chance to become a bona fide hit. “Is Fort Worth Worth It”, the only tune in which Terri does not share a songwriting credit, is another one of my favorites. Like “The Inside Story”, it was likely deemed too traditional to send to radio.
The line-dancing craze was at the peak of its popularity in the mid-90s, and many of the songs on Terri Clark appear to have been written with that in mind. Tunes like “Was There A Girl On Your Boy’s Night Out”, “Flowers After The Fact”, and “Something You Should’ve Said” are all lyrically-light, beat-driven songs that are pleasant enough to listen to, but not particularly memorable.
I find that this is another one of those albums that I might enjoy more if it were sequenced differently. The first half is much stronger than the second. I tend to lose interest in it after track #7 (“When We Had It Bad”), as the only truly great track after that is “The Inside Story.” But while I do find some of the songs to be a bit weak, I wouldn’t classify any of them as actually being bad.
Terri Clark peaked at #13 on the Billboard’s US Top Country Albums chart, earning platinum status for sales of more than 1 million units in the US. In Canada, it reached #2 and earned triple-platinum status there, which in the 90s signified domestic sales in excess of 300,000 units. It remains her best-selling album in her native country, and is tied with her next two releases in the US.
Grade: B+
Terri Clark is available inexpensively from third-party sellers at Amazon.
The music distribution website CDBaby, where I sometimes go to get hold of more obscure independent artists, has a “sounds like” search function, where you can enter the name of a famous artist you already like, and find music by someone who supposedly sounds similar (at least according to that artist’s publicity). While this more often applies to general style than to real “soundalikes”, I’ve been thinking lately about the latter – when a new artist is more than just reminiscent of an established act.
Virtually every review to date of newcomer Easton Corbin has commented on his obvious debt to George Strait, although personally I would say he owes almost as much to Alan Jackson, and isn’t really a copycat of either. General awareness of this similarity does not seem to be hampering his career momentum – if anything it gives him some instant credibility in setting him apart from the pop-inspired hordes on country radio.
Many successful artists in the past have been compared to stars of the past – when Sammy Kershaw emerged in the early 90s his vocal similarity to George Jones was noted, and part of the significance of country music’s respect for its roots is that the influence of stars of the past has always been acknowledged. Listen to Randy Travis, and you can hear the effect of years listening to Merle Haggard, Merle owed much to Lefty Frizzell and Jimmie Rodgers, and so on, but each of these artists was also able to develop their own spin on a common base. There is a fine line between being part of a tradition, and influenced by your predecessors’ vocal stylings, and coming across as a mere carbon copy. George Jones started out his career copying his childhood idol Roy Acuff, to the extent that his first producer Pappy Daily once asked him,
‘George, I’ve heard you sing like Roy Acuff, Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell. I just want to know one thing: Can you sing like George Jones?’
As it turned out, he certainly could, but had he not been able to develop his own distinctive voice, he would not now be regarded as the greatest country singer of all time. But with the rapid pace of country music careers today, and the industry’s fascination with very young performers, there is not always time for a young singer to develop his or her own style before being judged and found wanting.
This year’s country contender on American Ido is a 17-year-old who sounds quite remarkably like Josh Turner – not only that, young North Carolinian Scotty McCreery auditioned with Turner’s hit ‘Your Man’, repeated it during the lengthy televised selection process, and also sang Josh’s classic ‘Long Black Train’. Turner himself used his website to admit to being flattered by the choice. I understand that he branched out and sang a John Michael Montgomery song last night – I haven’t heard it yet, so I don’t know whether he achieved triumph or disaster or something in between. If he survives this week’s first vote, I think he has a voice which will be worth tuning in for, although perhaps not a fully polished style – unsurprising given his youth. But as a potential star in the real world, I wonder if he’s not a bit too similar to Turner for his own good. Would he be able to make his own music distinctive enough to get played in its own right, should he make it far enough on the show to guarantee a major label record deal? That seems all the more of an issue as the Idol franchise has now cut its longstanding ties with Sony, and first dibs on any stars created by this season will go to the Universal Music Group – parent of Josh Turner’s label MCA.
Do you think a new artist is harmed or helped by sounding like an old favorite?
Terri Lynn Sauson was born in Montreal to a musical family – her grandparents were Ray and Betty Gauthier, successful Canadian country musicians in the 1950s and 60s. The family soon settled in the small town of Medicine Hat, Alberta, where Terri grew up. At age four, her parents divorced and her mother re-married afterwards. Known professionally as Terri Clark, the surname is that of her mother Linda’s second husband.
A year after graduating high school, a 19 year-old Clark made the move to Nashville. While touring the city’s famous spots, she happened into Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge. An impromptu performance landed her a steady gig at the renowned Opry star watering hole for $15 a day, plus tips. But as luck would have it, the young singer soon began catching the attention of record industry folks who still visited the bar. Producer Keith Steagall heard Clark performing in Tootsie’s, and when he was named an executive at Mercury Records, he signed her to a deal in 1994.
Her raw honky-tonk sound and high-octane stage performances helped to set her apart from the pack of beauty queens who were storming the charts at the time. And as the only female artist wearing a cowboy hat, she certainly her her own niche. Her first two singles would become top 5 hits, and establish her as a rocking party girl with a country twang. She would go on to score three top 10 hits, and an additional top 40, from her platinum-selling self-titled debut album. The first three albums released would each sell platinum, and the third earned her the first of 2 U.S. country #1′s with ‘You’re Easy On The Eyes’.
2000′s Fearless was an attempt at re-tooling her sound to a more introverted singer-songwriter style, but was met with resistance at radio. Still, it contains some of Clark’s finest moments on record. Pain To Kill, issued in 2003, was a return to form to both the high-energy country sound and to the upper reaches of the country charts. 2005′s Life Goes On would be her final album for Mercury, as she switched labels to BNA in 2006. That label released two singles, both charting inside the top 40, but delayed the album. Clark’s short association with BNA ended in 2008 with the album she recorded for them never being released.
Following a sabbatical, Terri Clark re-emerged in 2009 with the independently recorded The Long Way Home, released on her own BareTrack Records. First released only in Canada, the album saw full release in the U.S. through an association with Capitol Nashville. Four singles from the album would chart to varying degrees of success in her native Canada, while the lead single ‘Gypsy Boots’ received limited airplay in the U.S. The singer also launched an acoustic tour to promote the record’s release.
Terri Clark continues to record and release music, and is still finding great success in her homeland. She is currently in the studio recording her eighth album, and the lead single, ‘Northern Girl’, is slated for release later this month. Unlike others who only pay lip service to their alleged musical influences, Terri Clark’s albums all bear the fingerprints of the music of Ricky Skaggs, The Judds, Reba McEntire, and others she cites as influential. Check back throughout March as we highlight the career of this very talented lady.
In the nearly six years since her last full-length studio release, Sara Evans has been divorced and remarried, appeared on Dancing With The Stars, written a novel, and struggled to stay alive commercially, in a radio environment that has been increasingly indifferent to female artists, particularly ones who are not blonde and under 30. Her career finally seems to be getting back on track, thanks to the success of her current single “A Little Bit Stronger”, which, thanks to its inclusion on the Country Strong soundtrack, has provided Sara with her first Top 20 hit since 2007′s “As If.”
