Lantana [Digipak] (CD - 2008)

Personnel: Rich Brotherton (vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar, acoustic 12-string guitar, electric guitar, 6-string guitar, 12-string guitar, resonator guitar, electric bass); Marty Muse (pedal steel guitar); Danny Barnes (banjo); Warren Hood (fiddle, viola); Glenn Fukunaga (upright bass); Paul Pearcy, Tom Van Schaik (percussion).

Audio Mixer: Rich Brotherton.

Recording information: Ace Recording, Austin, TX.

The ache in Caroline Herring's voice evokes blue-veined mountains, red soil, box socials, and Sunday porch-singing, and she doesn't shy away from gritty lyrical matter, like the true story of a mother who drowns her children, or the tarnished history of slavery in her native south. In a word, she is authentic, a true proponent of the Americana form. This 2008 release, her third, mines all the varieties of trad folk, including tangy country-blues and murder ballads. The artist's lovely voice and acoustic guitar playing are supplemented by violins, steel guitar, and mandolin, arranged tastefully around the simple but haunting songs.

The artist that Caroline Herring most brings to mind is Gillian Welch. Like Welch, Herring seems capable of conjuring up songs that sound like they were written a century ago. The Mississippi native now lives in Austin, TX, were her mournful, low-key tunes have won her a growing audience. Lantana is her third outing, and like her others, draws on her knowledge of Southern folklore, incorporating bits and pieces of lyric and melody from familiar sources and transforming them into something new and eerily familiar. Case in point, "Lay My Burden Down," which takes the bones of an old spiritual and fashions them into a celebration of eternal life with lyrics full of plain-spoken folk poetry. Herring's vocal is so delicate it almost breaks; instead she just breaks your heart. "Stone Cold World," the opener, couldn't be more different. It's the portrait of a young woman longing for love, and while she claims to be selfish, it's plain that she's more depressed and frightened. When true love finds her, she's unable to respond, and Herring's forlorn vocal and the subtle pedal steel guitar that cries in the background tells you all you need to know about her plight. "Heartbreak Tonight" peers into the life of a popular high school gal who now finds herself trapped in an empty marriage in an empty house waiting for her husband to return from the bar or casino. The portrait is painted with subtle touches, and again Herring delivers the sad news with a soft voice that intensifies the heartache and misery. "Fair and Tender Ladies" borrows its name from a well-known folk song, but it's a salute to the little acts of heroism that all women and girls perform everyday. "Paper Gown" is a gothic murder ballad, the tale of a woman drowning her children. Its matter of fact telling of the crime makes it even more chilling. The women Herring writes about are all ordinary, and extraordinary, in the ways we all are, but Herring's ability to illuminate their hearts and souls is something truly special. ~ j. poet minimize