All Jacked Up (CD - 2005)

Personnel: Gretchen Wilson (vocals, guitar); Merle Haggard (vocals); J.T. Corenflos (acoustic guitar, electric guitar); John Willis, Bryan Sutton (acoustic guitar); Dean Hall, Kenny Greenberg, Tom Bukovac (electric guitar); Paul Franklin, Russ Pahl (steel guitar, lap steel guitar); Mike Johnson (steel guitar); Jonathan Yudkin (fiddle); Steve Nathan (piano, Hammond b-3 organ); Glenn Worf, Michael Rhodes (bass guitar); Eric Darken, Shannon Forrest, Chad Cromwell (drums, percussion); Wes Hightower, Liana Manis, Jon Nicholson (background vocals).

While Gretchen Wilson's highly successful debut, HERE FOR THE PARTY, was a redneck manifesto for how to have a good time, her 2005 follow-up, ALL JACKED UP, is the next day's eyeopener. Wilson still gets drunk and quarrelsome on the raucous opening title track, but most of this 2005 album is surprisingly low-key, as a number of gentle ballads rub elbows with rural-minded mid-tempo songs (most notably "Politically Uncorrect," featuring the legendary Merle Haggard). Although Wilson mostly sticks to no-frills working-class anthems, she also sneaks in a beautifully melancholy Billie Holiday-like take on the jazz standard "Good Morning Heartache" as a hidden bonus track, showing that this "Redneck Woman" has a charmingly unpredictable streak. minimize