Canada's country music 'Female Vocalist Of The Year 1994', Patricia Conroy delivers a tour de force album of sizzling new country, recorded at the ultimate rural recording facility, and featuring ten dynamic tracks, all of which are potential chartbusters!
From cookin' country dance-oriented mixes like Lyle Lovett's 'You Can't Resist It' to the Motown-influenced ballad 'The Bridge' (written by Tom Kimmel & Jim Pittman), the CD is a winner in anybody's book. Laced together with bright country rockers like 'Diamonds' and Conroy's own originals 'I Don't Wanna Be The One' and the fun-loving 'Keep Me Rockin', the package is superbly recorded.
The lush, dynamic mixes sit atop a rhythm section anchored by veteran drummer Kenny Aronoff (with Mike Brignardello on bass and Dennis Burnside on piano, and Hammond B3), and sparkle with bright acoustic guitar and twangy electrics by Brent Rowan, David Grissom and Bob Funk, blowing in a mandolin wind (Rowan) and highlighted by lap steel, pedal steel and dobro (Dan Dugmore, Bruce Bouton, Rowan). Whatta band!
Conroy's performance is definitely a step beyond her recent 'Bad Day For Train's' album, which was named Album Of The Year in Canada for 1993 by the Canadian Country Music Association. The producers have created mixes which never intrude on the energy or intimacy of Patricia's vocals. Her singing blossoms in this environment!
Her own composition 'Crazy Fool' hits a tender spot, with Everly Brother's echoes and the strident 'Too True Blue', written by George Tern and Susan Longacre, nails today's country sound!
Although there are a fair measure of hurtin' songs, perhaps best exemplified by the lead single 'Somebody's Leavin', there is also a spirit of sincerity, a seeking of understanding.
'Like a paint filled canvas / In shades of white and blue / I'm filled with questions / And I'm calling out to you / To find a way / To forgiveness / For all our mistakes...' Conroy sings on 'Diamonds'.
'We were struck by lightning / A lifetime ago...' she suggests on 'The Bridge' and continues... 'Love can take some crazy side streets / It'll twist and turn you around...'
But it is on the final track, a heart-melting ballad, 'Home In Your Arms' where Conroy's true romanticism is most revealingly played out. This story of Billy and Betty, a couple from Oklahoma who travel west to California to seek a better life, champions true love and honest values. When Billy (a dreamer and a seeker) asks Betty how come she loves him when he's not very good at providing the material comforts of the consumer society, her answer strikes a chord of simplicity: 'You're the only thing I ever wanted / Mansions are drafty and they're always haunted'.
Unlike the scenarios described in ninety-nine out of a hundred of those cheatin', hurtin' Nashville songs, this one has a happy ending. Billy makes good, they raise their kids and eventually, when they've raised their family, they sell everything and climb aboard a Winnebago to head back to Oklahoma. Written by Matraca Berg and Lisa Silver, this ballad, the tenth in a lineup of terrific songwriting, could be a number one smash!
While Patricia Conroy did not write all of these lyrics herself, she told me that she spent the better part of a year searching for the ten tunes. As her career builds momentum access has improved, the best songs are no longer locked away from her 'behind closed doors' in Nashville publishing houses, on 'hold'. Along with her own very presentable writing, Patricia has found songs which she truly makes her own, resulting in one of the strongest statements ever made on a country music album.
