(2023) Tanya Tucker - Sweet Western Sound    


Review:
On April 3, 2023, Tanya Tucker was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame alongside singer Patty Loveless and songwriter Bob McDill. Four years earlier, the outlaw legend ended a 17-year recording hiatus with While I'm Livin', co-produced by Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings. Despite offering a sound alien to the tech- and pop-obsessed music of 21st century Nashville, from six nominations, it took home Grammys for best country album and best country song. On Sweet Western Sound, Tucker and her production/songwriting team refuse to mess up a good thing: they double down on roots country with a small cast of musicians and writers. While Carlile and twins Phil and Tim Hanseroth wrote the lion's share of material for the previous outing, and they return here, Tucker is credited with four co-writes, and songwriter JT Nero of Birds of Chicago and the team of Billy Don Burns and Craig Dillingham penned a song each. "Tanya" opens the album; it's a poignant, sung voicemail from the late Billy Joe Shaver, a lifelong friend. With only the sound of a desert wind blowing, it reveals Tucker's openness, vulnerability, and steely candor. Set highlight "Kindness" was written by the Hanseroths and reveals the cost of living so close to the bone of Shaver's narrative. Acoustic guitar and rumbling, reverbed tom-toms accompany Tucker's weathered, resonant voice as she delivers a lyric about restlessness and becoming, things she intimately understands. Just as a pedal steel begins whining, she sings, "I've seen beauty that some might not understand/I found glory in the ruins of the best laid plans," as she petitions her beloved for kindness. Its simple, poetic truth informs the entire album. "Breakfast in Birmingham" was co-composed by Carlile and Elton John lyricist Bernie Taupin. It, too, illustrates the pleasure, pain, and wanderlust of the road as it changes the protagonist. Jennings' "Waltz Across a Moment" was written especially for Tucker. Accompanied only by pedal steel and gospel piano, is sees her offer, with resignation, acceptance, and a shred of hope: "Just like the California sun, I think I'm going down/Come meet me in the shadows of this drunken broken town/Don't curse your mind with yesterday/Just waltz across the moment to that sweet western sound." Carlile and Tucker co-wrote the gorgeous "Ready as I’ll Never Be." With a gospel choir backing, Tucker sings this prayer/spiritual manifesto with conviction and resolve. JT Nero's "City of Gold," weds pastoral country, gospel, and Americana in reflecting the interior treasure of a lover's heart, one that has been scarred and wounded by hurt, loss, and betrayal. Burns and Dillingham's "When the Rodeo Is Over (Where Does the Cowboy Go)" is an old-school hard-country paean to a way of life all but erased by history. Tucker closes Sweet Western Sound with a reprise of Shaver's voicemail that underscores all the truth revealed in the preceding songs. This is a major work that stands with the finest in Tucker's long career. — allmusic.com


   


Track List:
01 - Tanya
02 - Kindness
03 - Breakfast in Birmingham
04 - Waltz Across a Moment
05 - Ready As I'll Never Be
06 - The List
07 - Letter to Linda;
08 - City of Gold
09 - That Wasn’t Me
10 - When the Rodeo Is Over (Where Does the Cowboy Go)


Media Report:
Genre: country
Country: Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)


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