Down in Natchez, Mississippi, just across the river from
Jerry Lee Lewis' Ferriday, Louisiana, guitarist, songwriter and singer
Maggie Brown is remaking American roots music in her own image. Her self-titled debut is steeped in grease, honky tonk, blues, R&B, and the best of America's singer/songwriter tradition. And
Brown can play the hell out of a guitar. Sure, she listened to
Bonnie Raitt, but she also listened to
Sonny Landreth,
Delaney and Bonnie,
Rory Block, and
Delbert McClinton. Pure, rural, Southern soul drips from every single line she plays and cascades like hard water bubbling up from the rich black soil and falls from her mouth. In the grain of her big, clear, throaty voice is the sound of real heartbreak; one that sings of hard times from the center of experiencing them. But in it is also hard-won acceptance, and the vulnerable but wily will to transcend; every nuance, trill or groan digging a little deeper to express it.
Brown's band is a country-rock combo augmented in places with a B3 or piano here, a cello there, and a ringing weave of electric and acoustic guitars. When she rocks, she rolls. The opener, "Forty Dollars," offers a falling scale of acoustic chords, kissed by a droning electric as she intones: "Forty dollars worth of Lyle Lovett/Twenty dollars worth of gas/Might not get her back to Texas/ But she might outrun the past..." The electric sixes wind their way in snake-like, until the refrain when they crash in with anthemic authority as she soars over them. On "Full Moon Over Dallas," a dobro whines over mandolins and acoustic guitars as the protagonist speaks with aching resignation across the miles into a humming phone line to long lost love with the night as witness: "I look outside my window/And the darkness ain't so dark/... And I sat right down and got my heart to thinking...There's a full moon over Dallas/And you ain't here to see it... And the reason that I called you... I'm lonesome and this night don't seem to end/I guess this full moon over Dallas ain't my friend..." The roiling country-rock of "Used Cars," juxtaposes the protagonists' wish to lie to herself about a love affair with the dubious occupation of selling pre-owned automobiles. There's desperation here, but there's also humor. In "Jacob's Eyes," a mother looks at her sleeping son and accompanied by accordion, an acoustic guitar, and her own world-wise heart, wishes she could enjoy his blind optimism. The steamy, raw, hip-twitching sensuality of "Mosquito Net" is a testament to illicit sex via bluesed-out rock and R&B. But it is on the elegiac "Shame," where above a whinnying pedal steel percussion and acoustic guitars,
Brown offers shared blame for a love that is ending in the heart of the night when answers are no longer possible and delusions can no longer be constructed to hide the truth. This album is a stunner, impure, in-the-bone poetry. Only
Lucinda Williams self-titled effort for Rough Trade way back in 1984 begs comparison -- and not for sound or similarity, but quality. On this fine album,
Maggie Brown arrives a fully formed artist, tough, graceful, and startling.