Five and Dime Waltz

Dime Box | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 5, 2008)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Avebury Records
• ASIN: B0016K9XU6
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #637,294 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 11 Rootsy Country Gems, April 10, 2008

By 

Joe Beine (Denver, CO United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Five and Dime Waltz (Audio CD)

This is the band Kristi Callan was born to be in. She's got the right style, the right voice and most importantly, the right boots. Her earlier bands, like Wednesday Week and Lucky, were cool in their own way, but Dime Box has just the right down home country sound for Kristi's voice.

Five and Dime Waltz has ten spicy originals ranging from the bounce of "High Road" to the plaintive "Somehow Somewhere." And one Dolly Parton cover that fits right in. Every song is a highlight, every detail is in the right place. The finely picked strings on the guitars and mandolin. The gentle brushes on the drums. The mournful violin playing. And Kristi's passionate singing.

If your taste in country music leans toward Dolly Parton, Hank Williams and Johnny Cash, then you'll probably love this. And any album that mentions the dollar store in two different songs has got to be just right.

5.0 out of 5 stars Upbeat roots country at its finest, October 8, 2010

By 

Peter Durward Harris "Pete the music fan" (Leicester England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Five and Dime Waltz (Audio CD)

Lead singer Kristi Callan has been in the music business for a while; she was the co-founder and the lead singer of Wednesday Week, whose album What We Had has been re-packaged and released with bonus tracks and notes by Kristi herself. I haven't heard Wednesday Week's music, but Kristi has the kind of voice that would suit pop music as well as country music. Former pop singers recording country music as they get older is not a rare event, but it is interesting that a former pop singer eventually ended up fronting a rootsy country band and - what's really important - sounding completely at home doing so. However, this is a very upbeat album with none of the tearjerkers that people associate with traditional country music.

On this album, Kristi not only sings but also plays rhythm guitar. She is supported by four other women, three of whom contribute backing vocals. Between them, they play fiddle, mandolin, lead guitar, bass and percussion. Two male musicians also played on the album, one (who is also the record's producer) providing harmonica and additional percussion, while the other plays only on one track (Somehow somewhere) on which he platys jaw harp, banjo and guitar. With no electric instruments to be heard, this is country music of a type that won't get much airplay on mainstream radio stations, but will appeal to lovers of traditional country fans.

I came across this album by accident one day when looking for covers of Dolly Parton songs. There is no shortage of such covers and I don't buy albums just because they happen to include one or more of Dolly's songs, but it's one way of discovering music that would otherwise elude me; if an artist thinks enough of Dolly`s songs to record one of them, he/she/they might be of interest to me. In fact, this album is filled entirely with original material except for the cover of Do I ever cross your mind. Dolly herself recorded the song at least four times (with Chet Atkins, as a member of Trio, with Randy Travis and solo), but Dime Box do an excellent version of the song; it is certainly one of the best covers of a Dolly song that I`ve heard. That excellence is matched by the original material, all of which Kristi wrote or co-wrote.

The original material provides plenty of variation in pace, though most of the songs are upbeat, with a solitary heartfelt ballad (Somehow somewhere), From the opening Live a little to the closing Up to here, the quality never drops. This is great toe-tapping music for anybody who loves upbeat country music.