5.0 out of 5 stars
IT DON'T HURT To Be An Indie Artist, December 17, 2008
This review is from: It Don't Hurt (Dig) (Audio CD)
In a perfect world, or at least the 1970s, it would have been quite easy for somebody like California-based indie country singer Lisa O'Kane to fit onto country radio. Unfortunately, such a perfect world no longer exists, given the very restrictive way country radio has been formatted since the ascension of Garth Brooks. And Lisa surely doesn't fit into the world of Taylor Swift or Carrie Underwood, let alone Faith Hill or Martina McBride.
Then again, maybe that's a good thing, as can be gauged by this 2007 album of hers, IT DON'T HURT. While such songs as the title track and the opening stomper "Ain't Done Nothin'" might have earned her country airplay had this been recorded on Music Row (rather than suburban Los Angeles, as it was in reality), Lisa's vocal and musical approach, a kind of natural twang without sounding like a put-on, is more redolent of such great women as Maria McKee, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt. The Ronstadt connection is underlined by "Misery And Happiness", written by Linda's former sideman and Stone Poneys cohort Kenny Edwards, who also plays guitar and mandolin and does harmony vocals on the track. Lisa sometimes also evinces a Ronstadtian vocal throb, notably on "Misery And Happiness" and the closing track, "Remember This", though she is never slavishly imitative of Linda.
Lisa O'Kane is someone who is perhaps fated to fall through the Nashville cracks because of her indie-label status and her California roots. But on the other hand, that independence and that style of country music she purveys on IT DON'T HURT are not the kind of things that are in abundance on Music Row these days. It's Nashville loss, and a big gain for country music here in California.
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