|
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
|
|
|
|
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
|
|
Captain Morgan
Many fine, upstanding citizens of this great Cowtown will be out in force this Saturday at the Thirsty Armadillo for a celebration of All Things Heather Morgan, as the local singer-songwriter celebrates herself and the release of her first full-length c.d., Six Strings and Slow Backroads — and it should be assumed that some of these Fort Worthians have received from Morgan via snail mail a postcard advertising the performance and offering $5 off the cost of the c.d., which retails in the neighborhood of $79.
Just joshing — HearSay has no idea how much Six Strings runs. Still, your columnist knows a bargain when it hears one — even though we’re not sold on every cut. This disc is full of innocuous country, like the kind of stuff HearSay imagines is listened to by very sweet, good-natured, normal people who pay their bills on time and eat dinner while not standing over the sink and wash their SUV’s every week by hand just because and enjoy big-budget Jackie Chan movies when feeling particularly “edgy.” Another album full of songs with sad fiddle lines, delivered by (surely) some straight-whiskey drinker who has talked himself into believing that the reason he hasn’t shaved in two weeks is because he looks good in a beard, on top of the sweet sounds of a dobro being plucked by (surely) some downtrodden ex-Gibson salesman whose wife just left him for a right-winger on the local minor-league hockey club — this one’s so clichéd it’s downright un-American. So you could say Six Strings runs up against HearSay’s sentiments on tradition (hint: breaking tradition is HearSay’s i-dear of tradition!). Everything on this disc is so neat and deliberate that the point at which production stops and soulful music-making starts is nearly indefinable. And we blame Nashville for sanitizing c&w ... .
Still, there’s an intangible quality percolating — to use the hip hip-hop patois — throughout this disc. Credit Morgan, the gal, for this. Her (surely) God-fearing person comes shining through her voice, a shrill instrument packed with freshness, angel dust, and, yeah, just a little bit of uncertainty. Holding back, caution, the knowledge that what you’re singing will be heard by another human being, fear: This is the stuff of great vocalists. Morgan certainly has what it takes.
For example, Morgan goes for just the right pitch on “Penny,” a ready-for-radio number that comes somewhere in the middle of the disc. Unlike on “Hard Working Man,” a song that finds Morgan rightfully playing up the twang in her voice, the singer keeps her vocals as non-countrified as possible — perfect for khaki-wearin’ Clear Channel program directors nationwide, desperate for that “cross-over” charmer. “Ms. Morgan, we’ll see you now.”
At the Thirsty Armadillo on Saturday, you can expect a solid, professional show, with a lot of musicianship, many Lone Star beers in the seats (er, in the hands of the people in the seats), and myriad sparkling SUV’s in the parking lot.
Email this Article...
