Customer Reviews

The Spiritual Kind

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I've seen her in Mansfield and Euless singing her warm, sweet, upbeat, folkish, Austinish, spiritual songs to hard-hearted rednecks like me. She's real and she's awesome and she's Texas. This is a CD I listen to over and over.

I had the pleasure of seeing Terri Hendrix in Austin a few years ago and have been a fan ever since. This cd is really a delight. The melodies are of high quality and the lyrics are all worth a second listen. As always, Terri's voice is wonderful. Most of the songs are best classified as folky, but there is more range here than on some of her cds.

Hands down, my favorite album of 2007. That's coming from a longtime fan, so season it with however many grains of salt you want. But if you, too, are already a fan of Terri Hendrix, or a fan of smart, playful and impeccably played singer-songwriter/folk fare that's doesn't color inside the genre lines, "The Spiritual Kind" won't disappoint. I'd recommend it on the basis of the song "Acre of Land" alone -- it's Hendrix's best song to date. But there are several songs on this set that could claim that honor: "Bottom of the Hill," "Things Change," "Soul of My Soul" and especially "Jim Thorpe's Blues." The three cover songs ("Life's a Song," "Pastures of Plenty" and "What is the Color") are also outstanding, particularly as showcases for Hendrix and Co.'s (including producer Lloyd Maines) instrumental skills. I've returned to this album more than any other from the past year, and suspect I will for years to come. With all due respect to the rest of her catalog, this is the one I'd subtitle "The Essential Terri Hendrix," because everything she does so well that won me over from her first album 11 years ago is rendered here to perfection.

Hendrix has been building a self-released catalog of folk-rock Americana for nearly a decade, developing herself into a quadruple threat: singer, songwriter, string picker and harmonica player. Her voice has the airy, high qualities of Deana Carter, at times verging on the fragile tones of Alison Krauss and the sing-song wisdom of Joan Osborne. She writes with an intimacy that brings to mind Matraca Berg, but more often in first-person confessions than in story or character study.

Her latest set opens with the optimistic "Life's a Song," an accounting that finds joy outscoring trouble and likening life to an ever evolving melody. Optimism is a recurring theme, with "Bottom of the Hill" singing the praises of the half-full glass, and the album's finger-picked title track reveling in the personal choices that define one's own faith. There's a jug-band looseness and a Band-like folksiness to many of these tunes, and together they produce a sort of sunny green-grass euphoria (think of Blind Melon's "bee girl" video and you'll have the mood).

Lest you think Hendrix a wide-eyed naïf, she's equally adept at digging into social issues. Her superb cover of Woody Guthrie's "Pastures of Plenty" is a blue, Dylanesque lope that sits halfway between Bob Gibson and Country Joe. She sings Guthrie's lyrics with the anger and indignation, but more as a commentator than one who is oppressed, fully contemptuous of society's marginalization of immigrant workers. There are outraged notes of Michelle Shocked or Billy Bragg in the discourse, but also some more raw-nerved anguish that brings to mind Alanis Morissette. Hendrix's harmonica grows as urgent as a locomotive as the track concludes.

Turning more percussive and blue, Hendrix covers Jimmy Driftwood's philosophical excoriation of racism, "What is the Color of the Soul" and her Zydeco-spiced "Jim Thorpe's Blues" examines the disarray of Native American culture strewn amongst our modern throw-away society. Hendrix lives a balanced life, however, letting out a day's worth of bad mojo on the old-timey acoustic blues "No Love in Texas," but finding peace and strength in the physical labor and metaphorical regeneration of "Acre of Land."

This is a deft combination of folk, country, blues, pop and jazz, with Hendrix writing and singing comfortably across and between genres. Her lyrics are earthy and heartfelt and Lloyd Maines' mostly acoustic production is crisp and sympathetic to Hendrix's voice. This is a terrifically mature and sophisticated indie release. [©2007 hyperbolium dot com]

Clever lyrics, great voice, catchy tunes. If you like her other material, you'll like this CD. The CD arrived quickly and in fine shape as well.

I so enjoy her vocals and what she has to say, but I particularly love the music behind the vocals; she's got a great team, and I never miss an opportunity to hear them.