She may have studied Scottish folk music, and she may be the granddaughter of early country & western star
Tex Ritter (as well as the daughter of actor John Ritter), and it may be easiest to call her a folk performer, but
Carly Ritter has a lot of 1960s pop running in her veins, and the best of her songs on this, her self-titled debut album, call to mind classic female songwriters and singers from that era like
Carole King,
Jackie DeShannon,
Bobbie Gentry, and
Buffy Sainte-Marie. Oh, this is a contemporary folk record by definition (it's even released by one of the 1960s' major folk labels, Vanguard Records), with mostly gentle acoustic and appropriately atmospheric instrumental backing, but
Ritter's songs (she wrote or co-wrote all of them except for the traditional "Silver Dagger") have a pop DNA and a searching intelligence behind them. The best here, like the infectious opener "It Don't Come Easy," the powerful and epic "Princess of the Prairie," and the mournfully tragic but still somehow hopeful "Little Bird" that closes things out, show a songwriter with a deeply personal and yet universal vision. Her voice is just strong enough to carry the melodies, never over-matching the lyrics with ornamental miasma, crescendos, or unnecessary inflection, much like
Carole King, who always let the song take center stage. One feels that
Ritter still has a high ceiling, and that this fine debut is just the start of things. ~ Steve Leggett