Customer Reviews

Graceful Ghost

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This stunning CD is like a cross between the simple and infectious porch music of an early Dolly Parton record and a smart and evocative soundtrack of a Civil War movie. These aren't so much songs as little portraits whose characters ache-with both lust and sorrow. The CD is almost whimsical in the light touch it gives these deep lyrics. Grey De Lisle first caught my ear with her gorgeous voice and sometimes hilarious, always woeful lyrics about man problems on her self-produced Homewrecker CD (most memorable line: "I shoved 19 years of nerve into this dress, and I'm only 22"). This new CD uses her lyrical cleverness to tell stories of whole, desperate lives. I was so awestruck on first listen that I wondered if it would wear well: it does. It has that easygoing charm of Dolly's early records. I listen over and over as if the songs are old classics that keep the memories alive of lost stories and lost loves. They sound so genuine that even the one cover of a country classic seems like De Lisle's own. It's the simplicity that brings me back; it sounds like it was recorded on vintage sound equipment with no more in it than a few great musicians, their instruments, and their whole hearts. My favorite CD of this year.

Wow... talk about a shift of direction! After self-releasing a pair of semi-dismal rockabilly-retro albums, LA-based singer-songwriter Grey DeLisle has apparently found her metier, slowing things down and penning a bunch of spooky-sounding Carter Family/Dolly Parton-styled acoustic, old-timey ballads, material that fits her somewhat shaky voice much better than the uptempo bluesiness of the rockabilly scene. Before this disc came out, she was firmly planted on my "danger sign" list -- now I'm really curious to see where she goes from here. Admittedly, this disc is still gimmicky and bandwagonesque in an entirely different kind of way, but it has an atmospheric feel that works for me. Definitely worth checking out... Fans of Be Good Tanyas and Jolie Holland will probably like this as well.

The Graceful Ghost is the most gorgeous album from the 1800s you'll hear this year. DeLisle comes on like the ghost of Mother Maybelle or Kitty Wells (although sexier and more polished than either), and her songwriting shows ample hours studying at the feet of Dolly Parton (insert jokes about "the shade" here). A little research shows that DeLisle is an ultra-slick Hollywood voiceover queen and has released two homegrown retro-country albums prior to taking the big leap into spooky folk aimed straight for the O Brother! market. Yeah, I'm a bit jaded, but this album is clearly a fake and not afraid to admit it. (I love how the added ambient crackles and hiss on some songs fade out before the music does!) And yet, it's stunningly beautiful and DeLisle's talent as a singer and a songwriter cannot be denied. But she seems very market savvy/driven and going after a niche, I think; too often from head and not from the heart as it were. Still, it's far, far, far superior to the icky yuppie "country" slopped out on Norah Jones version 2.0. I wouldn't recommend The Graceful Ghost to anyone in place of authentic rural American field recordings, however I do think it stands a good chance to make my list for the best of '04 -- 2004 and not 1804, that is.

You wouldn't know it if you didn't read her bio or visit her web site, but Grey's done a whole lot of voice overs for cartoons. Real bigtime Hollywood type characters you'd recognize in a heartbeat. But that's nothing compared to her considerable talents as a singer and interpreter of American songs. She's got a true musical instrument that reaches you by telling a story through song. She's just wonderful.

Grey has a pretty voice but I really hate it when she "talks" during a song. I fast forward to the next song.

Grey De Lisle has beauty -- physical and esthetic -- and an exotic, mysterious name and sound. She is also a brilliant mimic. Reread the previous sentence, and see where the emphasis falls. Was it on "brilliant" or "mimic"? If it was the latter, you'll hear the best imitation that will ever be of Dolly Parton at her most traditional-sounding. If your eye fell on "brilliant," you will probably, on hearing the appropriately titled Graceful Ghost (which you can read on two levels; see "brilliant" and "mimic" above), hear something that amounts to a smart, subtle, deeply understood approximation of the old mountain songs and urban parlor ballads that inspired, and comprised the repertoire of, the Carter Family. Even the titles (though in prosaic fact denoting De Lisle originals) -- "The Maple Tree," "Tell Me True," "Turtle Dove," "Black Haired Boy" -- sound like the titles of Carter Family songs from a parallel universe. Actually, "Katy Allen" brings to the astonished senses the notion of an extraordinarily improbable collaboration between the Carter Family and Donovan. All of the songs here are very good for what they are, if you can accept what they are, but long after you've turned off the stereo -- no matter who you are, whatever you think of what's going on here -- it is unlikely that "Katy Allen" will let you be.