GOODBYE BLUE
Worth the Wait
Wondermore
Records/Noisetrade
* * * *
This album is everything I generally dislike: wall-to-wall
wholesomeness, family values, and parents singing about their children. Mind,
I've nothing against kids—but I nearly always find songs about parenthood
embarrassing in their sentimentality. So why do I suddenly adore an entire
album of this stuff?
Let's start with the obvious: the talent of the couple
featured, the husband-wife team of Charlotte Kendrick and Dan Rowe, she a
Pawling, NY native, University of Vermont grad, and Peace Corps vet; and he a
multi-instrumentalist, veteran of the Northeast music scene, and a producer of
indie label records. Okay—good values. Now let's go deeper. Ms. Kendrick
doesn't just have a nice voice—it's one that stops you in your tracks and makes
you ask, "Who is that?" Her
vocals are often compared to Patty Griffin, but Lori McKenna is a better
choice.
Kendrick and Rowe have three kids and the last one is the reason
why the album is christened Worth the
Wait; it was almost eight years between Kendrick's I Get Stupid and the new record. The album evokes Lori McKenna in
the way in which family comes first and music second. Appropriately, it opens
with the sunny "Another One on the Way," rendered in soft country
folk style and oozing family values, but not in a mawkish or romantic way. One
of the album's many joys is that Kendrick and Rowe simply embrace their choices
and move on: There’s no question we’ve got ourselves a handful/So
little time for us/But we’re never given more than we can handle/We’ve got this
babe, another one on the way. There's nothing preachy about them and no sugarcoating what
it takes to get by. On "Complicated," Kendrick sings, Nothing's simple as it seems/We both have
our dreams/And we know nothing worth having comes easily/But, oh, it's
complicated/Oh, it's complicated. Check out also the up-tempo, bluegrassy
"By Firelight," which might be destined to become an ode to exhausted
moms everywhere—a veritable litany of the ways in which kids and duties can
drive a person to the point where, …you’re
hiding in your basement/‘Cause you can no longer take it/Watching Youtube on
your phone/ You should be folding clothes/Prepping
dinner, wiping a nose/But all you need is one small minute alone.
Call
this an Americana album that's both sweet and refreshingly honest. There's some
folk, some bluegrass, a touch of hoedown, and the vibe of the title track is that
of an anticipatory "Circle Game" update. But, like Ms. McKenna, not a
peep of complaint from Kendrick—just that voice that makes you ask again,
"Who is that?" and shames curmudgeons
like me. Rob Weir
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