Apr 21 2008
Who says the Southern hip-hop star is primarily good for ringtone music? In this YouTube video, the “Yahhh!”-man deconstructs the recent ABC Democratic debate quite pithily. No matter who you’re rooting for (vote tomorrow!), the man makes some sound points.
Apr 13 2008
Twenty-one years old from Alabama, Ashton Shepherd has the voice of a blowsy fortysomething on most of her new-ish album Sounds So Good, and I mean that as a compliment. Singing songs she wrote about ditching a stale marriage (”Takin’ Off This Pain”), shaking off a suffocating domestic existence (”I Ain’t Dead Yet”), and getting drunk to blur the sight of an old love in a bar (”Old Memory”), Shepherd follows the tradition of country women from Wanda Jackson to Tanya Tucker to Dolly Parton in knowing in her bones what the future can hold for women who don’t stand up for themselves.
But far from being a fight-for-your-right-to-party affirmation album, Sounds So Good is a big, juicy commercial album… for the commercial country industry of, oh, about 1983. That is, when fiddles and a banjo and subject matter about working-class life were still viable hit-single material. (Not for nothing does Shepherd name-check 80s casualty-king Keith Whitley on one song here.)
I haven’t heard any country singer since Webb Pierce and George Jones sing as lustily and heartbrokenly about drinking too much , and I haven’t heard any woman as young as this with a voice as deep and knowing as Shepherd’s. (Think Patsy Cline just hitting legal age.) I realize these are extravagant comparisons, and who knows, maybe she’ll never match the force of this major-label debut–it’s happened before. But right now, Shepherd’s got the most consistent, go-for-broke, the-hell-with-you country album out there.