featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
August 9, 2020
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
How goddamn long does it take to make a dream come true, Ashley Ray exclaims on Pauline, the songwriter's third album. In addition to chipping away at her own recording career, Ray has paid her dues as a Music City writer-for-hire, penning songs with and/or for Little Big Town, Natalie Hemby, Wade Bowen and more. Working alongside fellow writer and producer Sean McConnell, Ray has composed a concept album that finds the artist turning the pages of her family scrapbook in search of her inheritance.
Even before the music starts, we hear the voice of Ashley Ray's mother, telling the story of the record's namesake, the singer's grandmother. The next voice is Ray's own, an arresting instrument that sounds ages old and genuine to the core. "Pauline" needs little else beyond a raw plucked banjo and sweeping strings to cast its spell: When that work went missing / You packed ammunition / To keep shoes on all of their feet. Ray speaks to the matter of hand-me-downs, what we carry forth from one generation to the next, be it a name, an heirloom or something as intangible as a gesture.
Though drawn to Nasvhille's bright lights, Ashley Ray follows those roots back to Lawrence, Kansas. A song of the same name reminds us how evocative sounds and smells and seemingly insignificant details can be in triggering memories from the depths of our identity. "Lawrence, Kansas" is one of Pauline's stunners, a strummed acoustic contrasting with sweet pedal steel, each in service of a rewarding melody: Think I need to get back to Lawrence, Kansas / I've been losing my roots, and I've been blowing in the wind / Got a need to throw a rock in Wakarusa. The town and the family home provide the stage for several of the pieces on the LP, including the memorable "Just a House". Entering with the sound of a breeze through windchimes, and adding the pathos of piano and strings, the song finds Ray gently encouraging her mother to leave that home behind after the passing of her father: The front door is giving you permission / It won't close, it won't be your prison / It's hanging on like your heart / But it all wants to fall apart / So just let it / You will be forgiven ... Mama, you can move on now.
Like Lori McKenna, Ashley Ray excels at painting these memorable songscapes, suggesting sentiment or character with just a sound or a lyric, never giving too much away. Elsewhere, she demonstrates her ability to evoke Miranda Lambert through her more gritty, tough tracks. An unexpected dose of groove, "Slurry" features an organ and stabs of edgy electric a'la Elizabeth Cook. "Dirty Work" reads like an unearthed Buddy & Julie Miller cut, damning men's two-faced expectations that women do the jobs that get the dirt beneath their nails while keeping up appearances. Ashley Ray's vocal resemblance to Julie Miller is unmistakable as she spits: Behind every good man there's a better woman.
While family mythology casts its shadow over Pauline, in many ways the most interesting stories Ashley Ray tells are about her own travails as a young woman and an artist struggling for recognition. "Waiting" relates an all-too-familiar tale of a songwriter driven to making ends meet wiping tables, when I should be singing a new song. There is genuine regret and self-doubt in her delivery, a weariness laid atop her reverb electric guitar: Fourteen years into this so-called ten-year town. See also "Rock 'n' Roll", built on a haunting banjo and atmospherics. It's a song also released as a single a few weeks ago by blues prodigy Christone "Kingfish" Ingram.
I think of this whole record as a memoir, Ashley Ray has remarked. Where some might strike too desperate a pose, or others might trump up the darker side of the family closet, she simply seems to be flipping through the fading portraits of the family album, setting the sepiatoned snapshots to a strain of country that is more traditional than contemporary, but no less relevant for the roots than Tyler Childers or Brent Cobb. Ray sings of her father over the reverb guitar on "St Patrick's Day": Tonight the shuffleboard and the Bud Light sign / Take me back to 1989 / I'm a dancing queen in Levi jeans / He looks at me like the apple of his eye / Didn't fall far from the tree. Pauline would be proud of her granddaughter.
- Alejandro Escovedo, "Heartbeat Smile" Burn Something Beautiful (Concord, 16)
- Margo Price, "I'd Die For You" That's How Rumors Get Started (Loma Vista, 20)
- Daniel Donato, "Broke Down" Young Man's Country (Cosmic Country, 20)
- Bella White, "Broke (When I Realized)" Just Like Leaving (Bella White, Sep 25)
- Pollies, "Ashes of Burned Out Stars" From the Guest Bedroom (Single Lock, 20)
- Cordovas, "High Feeling" Destiny Hotel (ATO, Oct 16) D
- Jenny O, "Old Habits" New Truth (Mama Bird, 20)
- Avett Brothers, "I Go To My Heart" Third Gleam (Loma Vista, Aug 28)
- Cake, "Stickshifts and Safetybelts" Fashion Nugget (Zomba, 96)
- The Chicks, "Set Me Free" Gaslighter (Columbia, 20)
- Bill Callahan, "Let's Move To the Country" Gold Record (Drag City, Sep 4)
- Jason Molina, "Fire On the Rail" Eight Gates (Secretly Canadian, 20)
^ Ashley Ray, "Just a House" Pauline (Soundly, Aug 14)
- Robert Ellis, "Steady As the Rising Sun" Lights From the Chemical Plant (New West, 15)
- Staves, "Nazareth" single (Nonesuch, 20) D
- Paul Cauthen, "Bones" single (Cauthen, 20) D
- Courtney Marie Andrews, "Together Or Alone" Old Flowers (Fat Possum, 20)
- Kenny Roby, "Hey Angelina" The Reservoir (Royal Potato Family, 20)
- Charley Crockett, "Paint It Blue" Welcome To Hard Times (Son of Davy, 20)
- Samantha Crain, "Constructive Eviction" A Small Death (Ramseur, 20)
- Grant Lee Phillips, "Mourning Dove" Lightning Show Us Your Stuff (Yep Roc, Sep 4)
- Spirit Family Reunion, "Put the Backseat Down" No Separation (SFR, 12)
- Kathleen Edwards, "Simple Math" Total Freedom (Dualtone, Aug 14)
- Tyler Childers, "House Fire (feat. Travelin' McCourys)" Spotify Singles (Hickman Holler, 20)
- Waylon Payne, "Back From the Grave" Blue Eyes, the Harlot, the Queer, the Pusher & Me (Carnival, Sep 11)
- Angie McMahon, "If You Call (feat. Leif Vollebekk)" Piano Salt (Dualtone, Oct 2) D
- Rev Greg Spradlin & Band of Imperials, "Sweet Baby" Hi-Watter (Out of the Past, 20)
- Twain, "Georgia's Song" Days of Effort & Ease (Twain, 20)
- David Ramirez, "Easy Does It" My Love Is a Hurricane (Sweetworld, 20)
- Isobel Campbell, "Don't Make It Easy" Remembering Mountains: Unheard Songs by Karen Dalton (Tompkins Square, 15)
What have YOU added to YOUR release calendar this week? It hasn't been the most bustling week for new stuff on A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster, but we've got enough for a quorum. Robbie Fulks serves as producer for Brennen Leigh's forthcoming project, landing September 18. Prairie Love Letter is a concept album in tribute to the songwriter's birthplace between Minnesota and North Dakota. Been a time since we've heard from Jimbo Mathus and Squirrel Nut Zippers. That spell will be broken by September 25, when the New Orleans outfit shares Lost Songs of Doc Souchon (Southern Broadcasting). Joe Stamm Band will be unleashing The Good & the Crooked (& The High & the Horny) that same day. Cordovas will be offering a follow-up to 2018's That Santa Fe Channel on October 16. Destiny Hotel will appear wherever music matters via Anti Records. Finally, get ready for a second 2020 release for Mountain Goats. Getting Into Knives lands on shelves October 23 courtesy of Merge. A ROUTES-cast of your very own:
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