Customer Reviews

One More Time

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

- and let Joy Lynn White get the success she so deservedly should have. Joy's intense, desperate and heartfelt singing has no match in today's bland pop-country mainstream world. She's in the league of the also underrated angel Kelly Willis. There are so few torch singers left out there, who's still allowed to do their thing without being destroyed by the industry's whishywashy arrangements and song. This album makes the long wait worth it all; the great playing, the sparse but powerfull arrangements and the nervetrashing singing gives you an endorphin rush from the first beat. She makes feeling bad, and good, feel so good!

Prime Cuts: Keep This Love, A Certain Boy, Just Some Girl

Before the Dixie Chicks were hatched, Joy Lynn White had been forging her way with her brand of country-rock nuanced with a control vulnerability and reckless audacity. As White's debut CD nested two latent hits ("Tonight the Heartache's on Me" and "Cold Day in July") which the Chicks later recorded flying them to great heights of popularity. Besides being an incubator for the Chicks, White has garnered the respect of many of her peers, resulting in her harmonies being added to the catalog of musical mongrels such as Dwight Yoakam, Lucinda Williams, Buddy Miller, Iris DeMent amongst others. "One More Time" is White's first album since 2002's independently released "On Her Own." Despite being co-curated by Kyle Lehning (whose has been known to helm bucolic albums by Tammy Wynette, the Derailers, George Jones, Dan Seals and Randy Travis to list a few), "One More Time" continues on the path of country-rock set by her previous CD, making few concessions to country radio. Like Lucinda Williams and Maia Sharp, though there's the presence of steel, mandolin and banjo, jarring guitars and propulsive drumming are the call of the day.

Thus far, "One More Time": has already been greeted with an auspicious start as Americana radio has already been eating up her mulling new single "Keep This Love." A pulsating country-rock tune co-written by White with Doug Millet, "Keep This Love" tells about the struggles of a couple trying their best to salvage their desecrating romance. Even more fetching is White's take on the New Orleans' bluesy romp of "A Certain Girl" which has been associated with Warren Zevon and Eric Clapton. "A Certain Girl" which is tells of love-stricken protagonist who refuses to kiss and tell when her girlfriends ask her who her new boyfriend is. Though it may sound like a throwaway novelty, but it's genuinely funny and White delivers it with sly sensuality that shows more character as a vocalist than on any other track. On the slow pensive "Just Some Girl," White goes underneath the façade of every day's niceties and unearths the loneliness, hurts and frustrations of modern living. This is soul bearing stuff at its best.

Another of this album's allure resides in White's ingenuity in her keening artistic creativity in capturing life's most acerbic moments. Case in point is "Victim of Love," where a couple is trying to converse with all the well worn clichés without revealing their honest feelings. Only to be interrupted by White with her repeated "yeah, yeah, yeah" in an attempt to blow away their false pretenses. While "Girls with Apartments in Nashville," which first appeared on White's previous "On Her Own," is a bona fide popish ballad about wannabe artists who try to try their luck on materialize their elusive dream of being country stars. Making no recess for any fairytale illusions, White chronicles the loneliness of such odyssey: "The night wind blows/And they're so far away/From the people that they know/'Cause their dreams' in Nashville."

However, not everything here is that fortuitous: there are a few tracks that somehow are not offensive, but they lack the extra bite to make them truly shine. Though, the Kostas/Joy Lynn White "I'm Free," which deals with being untangled from a love triangle, rocks like a modern day Heart song, there's nothing truly memorable about the tune. While on the title track, a co-write between White and rocker Amy Rigby belongs more to alternative rock than country. Though there are some snarling electric guitars that underscored "Good Rockin' Mama," there's nothing to elevate it from being just another tribute to mom piece. Though there are ups and downs, but there's enough on "One Time Around" that's worth the price for. White's sometimes fiery attitude coupled with her girlish-sounding sensitivity are ultimately what makes this former red head stand out among her peers. When she rocks, she does indeed rock. And when she croons a ballad, be prepared for some heart melting moments.

I read a review on Joy Lynn White in No Depression and bought it based on who she had worked with. Buddy Miller, Dwight Yoakam, and more. To the untrained ear, it may sound like pop country, but she's got more chops than anyone out there. Her lyrics are not my favorite, but her voice and band more than make up for it

It has been such a long time, but well worth the wait. Unlike our North American cousins, we in Australia have not had the benefit of being able to see JLW on stage, so it has been many years since the release of The Lucky Few and the newly released One More Time. Let's hope we don't have to wait so long again. There's no other voice like it.

Joy Lynn White delivers another outstanding package that may slip below the radar for many. Of my four favorite tracks, she covers "A Certain Girl" that was recorded by Ernie K-Doe who had a #1 hit with "Mother-In-Law" in 1961, the vintage for this tune. White's version pulses with energy and her trademark vocals that fill a song completely. "Love Sometimes" boasts a gorgeous White melody and her passionate delivery, "I don't always know what love is, but I know this love is fine." "Victim of Love" with its la-la chorus and White's tongue-in-cheek swagger floats down the aural cavity like sonic candy with Russ Pahl's banjo plunking frenetically in the background, "If loves tries to blind us, we've got the scars to remind us so we won't end in tragedy." "One More Time" written with Amy Rigby has a beautiful melody and a powerhouse vocal dripping with emotion, "And I wonder where the day goes; I'm the queen of wasting time; I've got everybody's number but I keep on losin' mine." This is a slow, delightful track. While four classic tracks makes this an excellent set, the other tracks are also strong from the rocking opener "Keep This Love" to the breakup ballad "I'm Free" and the blazing "Good Rockin' Mama." Once again, Joy Lynn White proves to be one of the greatest country singers with another strong set. Enjoy!

It seems in today's Nashville that for every so-called "hitmaker" they let in, the Music Row bigwigs either downplay or dismiss at least ten others, and let them fall through the cracks. Such is the case with Joy Lynn White, who has been doing this for the better part of a decade with only minimal success and virtually no country radio airplay, apart from having two songs of hers, "Cold Day In July" and "Tonight, The Heartache's On Me", recorded by the Dixie Chicks, one of the very few truly great acts of the post-Garth era.

As her newest album ONE MORE TIME indicates, Joy just may be much too eclectic for some Nashville record honcho to place her into a neat box. There's her playful R&B cover "Certain Boy", the neo-traditional "If You Want My Heart", the bluegrass-tinged "Victim Of Love", and the modern rockabilly stomper "Good Rockin' Mama." There really isn't anything here that can be marketed the same way they market Faith Hill or Martina McBride to country/AC-pop crossover success. Realistically, despite the album being recorded in Nashville, Joy's style is very redolent of one of her biggest and most unabashed influences, Linda Ronstadt. The mixing of styles within a framework of traditional country and rock is something Joy definitely seems to have learned from listening to Linda's classic 1970s Los Angeles country-rock albums, and she integrates that influence quite well into her own individual singing and songwriting style. Anyone with a taste for country and rock that is not watered down by Nashville's cookie-cutter mentality should go out and support Joy's effort here; it is well worth the effort.

I met Joy about two years ago in Nashville and bought her then two CD's from her. She had backed up a freind of mine, Dale Keys, at The Blue Bird Cafe. Her vocals were then and are now completely transiendental. This new work of her's is pure mastery that leaps between the "old school" that is Joy to the very, very new. Extremely well produced , this is one for the soon to become classic and very original bin. Great work Joy!!!