Stronger

Carlene Carter | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 4, 2008)
• Original Release Date: 2008
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Yep Roc
• ASIN: B0012GJJEO
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #87,169 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Review

''It may well stand as one of the best albums of this year.'' --Country Standard Time

''First album in more than a decade for the Carter Family scionette and rebel country star, after a succession of travails, so it's great to hear her again.'' --USA Today

''First album in more than a decade for the Carter Family scionette and rebel country star, after a succession of travails, so it's great to hear her again.'' --USA Today

Product Description

As part of country music royalty (the daughter of June Carter Cash and Carl Smith and step daughter to Johnny Cash) Carlene Carter has seen both the ups and downs of the music business and life. She's lived as the daughter of a legend and had her family chronicled in Hollywood films (Walk the Line). She's seen the dark side of fame and struggled with addiction, all the while holding onto the grace and class emboldened deep family roots. Inspired by her life experiences, 'Stronger' is a raw but touching recollection of her life of the past few years. Years that included the wrenching sorrow of the sudden death of her stepfather, mother, sister and ex-lover. Also in that same year she experienced the euphoria of meeting and falling in love with the cowboy of her dreams. On her latest work 'Stronger,' family roots have intertwined with her musical roots, seeing Carlene return to Tennessee to record and prompting her to work closely with brother John Carter Cash. Her recent emotional peaks and valleys have also inspired Carlene to write the bulk of the material on Stronger, making for her most honest, real and moving work to date.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Triumphant Return to Recording, March 4, 2008

By 

Alexandra Hidalgo (Akron, OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stronger (Audio CD)

Lucinda Williams spent six years working on "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" and every one of those years can be heard in the depth of her songs. Carlene Cater hasn't recorded an album since 1995, and although she hasn't been working on "Stronger" all the years we've been missing her voice, the album is as profound and multi-layered as if she had been in the studio all that time. Instead she has been busy living. Falling in and out of love, grieving, growing, and her new album is infused with all the wisdom and power gathered from those experiences.

The title song "Stronger" is the heart of the album. A tribute to her sister Rosie that sends chills down the spine and makes us revisit our own losses with a tinge of hope. The melody in "Spider Lace" haunts us with its subtle beauty and "Bring Love" reminds us of the power of love to beget redemption, no matter what we are leaving behind when we embark on that most fragile and exquisite of journeys.

It is "Judgement Day," however, that always stays with me the longest. Inspired by former boyfriend Howie Epstein's death, Carter has created a masterpiece of loss and regret, of the anguish that comes from loving someone whom we cannot save. And yet, if art has any ability to heal and forgive, then this album has achieved it. Whether you are new to Carter's transcendent voice and lyrics or you have been following her career through the years "Stronger" will make you ecstatic to have her recording and performing again. Welcome back.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Country-Rock Legend at Her Very Best, March 4, 2008

By 

JordanJasper - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stronger (Audio CD)

Carlene Carter has had one of the more erratic and mercurial musical careers in country-rock-roots music over the past few decades, but she has never been anything less than a monstrously talented singer-songwriter. A blazing talent. Her commercial peak came in the early 90s, when she racked-up a series of big country chart hits ("I Fell in Love," "Come on Back," "Every Little Thing," "The Sweetest Thing") that seemed destined to bump her to superstar status.

A series of well-documented troubles got in her way: run-ins with the law; drug travails; and most heart-breakingly, an 8-month stretch wherein she lost her mother (June Carter Cash), step-father (Johnny Cash), longtime companion (Howie Epstein), and little sister (Rosie Nix-Adams).

The only positive side of this woe is that Carter remains one of the few great artists who can sing about life's more serious troubles from direct experience, much like Merle Haggard and, yes, Johnny Cash. But her music is indelibly her own, as this outstanding new album, 'Stronger,' demonstrates.

Carlene Carter has always been fun and uplifting, even as she pierces through the layers to get right at the heart. This album ranks with her very best work, and, in many ways, exceeds her previous best.

The voice is full and resonant, and her songwriting as incisive and electric as ever. The whole album plays like a "full circle" piece (which is saying quite a lot, for her particular life). The rousing, kick-your-heels-up joy of country-rock hymns like "Bring Love" hearken to her heyday gems, but with new urgency and emotion. "Light of Your Love" does the same, with outstanding rhythm and genuine hooks galore. She also notches one of the most haunting and brilliant pieces of roots music by ANYBODY with her song "Spider Lace"--a chillingly good, jaw-dropping ode to those who get left behind in matters of the heart.

From song to song, she weaves her musical tapestry with such command and conviction, that you can't believe she's still THIS GOOD. The production is tight and sparkling, letting the songs sell themselves, and every one of them is a winner. The magic of this awesome record is that Carlene is full of light and life and remembrance that strengthens the listener and makes you want to sing along, as her best work has always done.

Fitting, then, that the final track here is "Stronger," one of the best country tear-jerkers in ages--a song about loss and yet new life, new possibilities, that will be one of her all-time classics. Hard to believe, but Carlene Carter is back, and she is at the very top of her game. This is a proverbial "desert island" disc, and a must-have for fans of country, country-rock, or roots-rock. Classic. Classic. Classic.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars a CD that should have, could have been a lot better, July 9, 2009

By 

Mickey Dean "guitar player" (Millersville, Pa United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stronger (Audio CD)

Carlene Carter sings better than ever and there are some very well written songs on Stronger. That's the good news. The bad news is the production. Although her producer, John McFee, is a terrific musician, he has apparently never met an effects processor he didn't like... too much. Roots records, even Carlene's most commercially successful ones, are wonderfully big on jangle and twang. There little of that here that has survived being beaten into submission by too much compression and chorusing. Even the blue grass numbers feel like cheesy synth parts are more likely to pipe in at any moment than an unaltered guitar line. If you are a fan of "less is more" production in roots music, you will be very disappointed in this over produced country pop that is more akin to the swill that passes for country music on FM radio than the quality Carlene Carter is known and loved for. A+ for the vocals, B+ for the song writing and instrumental performances, and a D for what i am sure was well intentioned execution that went sadly wrong.