Kate MacKenzie: "Age Of Innocence" Red House, RHR CD91 (34 mins) Dial-a-track code: 1641
LeAnn Rimes: "Blue" Curb, CURCD 028 (36 mins) Dial-a-track code: 1751
Buddy Miller: "Our Love And Other Lies" Hightone, HCD 8063 (42 mins) Dial-a-track code: 1861
Those who say that country music offers a choice between the bad and the very bad should open their ears to minor rising acts such as Kate MacKenzie. Age of Innocence is an album that bursts out of the speakers - which is something for a mostly acoustic collection of bluegrass songs. MacKenzie's voice is fresh and clear and her choice of material is excellent, including Mick Hanly's Past The Point Of Rescue. Add to that a bunch of players whose enthusiasm is matched by their dexterity, and you have a bluegrass album to rattle any campfire get-together.
LeAnn Rimes skipped the whole bracket of rising young star and went straight to mega status with this debut album last year. But there is something very dodgy about a young girl (I think she is all of 15 now) singing this adult schmaltz. Her voice is strong, but the emotions behind it are those of a teenage girl and it shows. Certainly, minus the freak factor (she's not the first child country star, nor almost certainly the last) she should grow to a future Nashville contender.
Buddy Miller, one senses, has no such ambitions. I had long meant to get hold of this 1995 album, but following his wonderful guitar-playing exhibition in Emmylou Harris's band at a recent Dublin concert, that casual wish turned to keen interest. I'm glad I did. Miller writes, plays and sings seriously good country songs, some with a twinge of regret, others with a sense of rocking good humour, and all touched by his unerringly skilful hand. Seek it out.
Mike Henderson & The Bluebloods: "First Blood" Dead Reckoning (49 mins)
Dial-a-track code: 1971
R.L. Burnside: "Mr Wizard" Fat Possum/Epitaph, 0301-2 (40 mins) Dial-a-track code: 2081
From white blues to, well, white and black blues. My abiding memory of Mike Henderson will be the sight of his cowboy hat and his stunning playing during a great night when the Night Of Reckoning tour hit Dublin last year. That was a night of mainly folk/country, with the odd 12-bar lick thrown in to stir the masses. First Blood, is, however, hardcore steaming blues played with power, precision and passion. I'll let Mark Knopfler have the last say: "There really aren't that many people around ... who can write, sing and play country and then deliver a cracking blues set without so much as a pause to buy another pack of Camels."
R.L. Burnside's collection is a bleaker affair. Slide-guitars glint like switchblades over a primitive beat that has the heat of the crossroads all over it. Burnside's voice is big and ominous and he rules the den, presiding over a confection of 12-bar rhythms that reek of hard times in small rooms. But he is at his most persuasive armed solely with his guitar, as on the memorable opening
Over The Hill and the closing You Gotta Move, where his voice is a vivid portrait of desperation.
Various Artists: "20 years of Stony Plain" Stony Plain, SPCD 1230 (140 mins) Dial-a-track code: 2191
Various Artists: "New Electric Muse" Castle, ESB CD 416 (210 mins approx)
Dial-a-track code: 2301
Stony Plain is a small Canadian label noted, apparently, for its good taste. The two CDs in this collection certainly display evidence of a tasteful hand at the tiller with the blues well represented and country not far behind. Names like Maria Muldaur, Jimmy Witherspoon and Steve Earle abound but my favourite was a neat slice of rockabilly: How Long Can She Last (Going That Fast) by Webb Wilder and the Beatnecks.
The New Electric Muse is the story, in three CDs, of how British and Irish folk music moved into rock. Originally released during the 1980s, it has been elegantly repackaged and supplemented so that the story moves to contemporary artists like Sharon Shannon and Eliza Carthy, the daughter of Martin and Norma Waterson This is truly a treasury of classic song and a great alternative to dog-eared sleeves and scratched vinyl.
