All tagged Melissa Carper
The Wonder Women of Country are here to save us from the mundane in modern country music.
Three of country’s most distinctive voices – Kelly Willis, Melissa Carper and Brennen Leigh – have made their occasional team-ups official with a name and now an album, Wonder Women of Country: Willis, Carper, Leigh, which comes out March 15.
The EP is a triumph, an easygoing demonstration of the enduring appeal of traditional country music in the hands of three masters of their craft. These songs are as traditional as cornbread yet fresh as a still-warm strawberry just off the vine.
The Wonder Women were born of mutual admiration and friendship.
Directly on the heels of her critically acclaimed 2021 LP, Daddy's Country Gold, Melissa Carper barrels into the homestretch of 2022 with a jumping and jovially jazzy new release, Ramblin' Soul. Sure to further intoxicate an already captivated and ever expanding following, the 13 track LP boasts lyrics that read as a romantic vagabond autobiography melded deftly with that distinctive Carper sound born of the blues, the earliest of rock-'n'-roll, classic country, western swing, and steeped in steadfast soul.
If there ever was an album born to be sentimentally spun on warm, black vinyl, Melissa Carper’s Daddy’s Country Gold is it. Ethereal vocals draped leisurely over a stand up bass line puts listeners in the mood to tenderly twirl around the kitchen with their beau as in days of old. From the first track of Makin’ Memories to the last haunted notes of The Stars Are Aligned, nostalgic notes comprised of classic country, western swing and jazz seem to waft in from the early 20th century, carried in on the shoulders of Melissa Carper, a protege of sorts of the great Jimmie Rogers and Patsy Cline. The album’s conception stems from a mixture of Carper’s own upbringing in her family’s band and years spent busking through the nation’s music hubs, forming notable musical collaborations like The Carper Family, Sad Daddy, and Buffalo Gals along the way. Carper, dubbed Daddy by bandmates in years past for always knowing how to take care of ‘bidness,’ has in this collection a true testament to what magic can happen when an artist not only has a clear inner vision, but also the wherewithal to carry it forth to fruition.
