I have a female guilt complex because I don’t listen to nearly enough women singer/songwriters. Logically, I know there just aren’t as many women as men making the kind of records I like, but whenever I look at my CD collection, the wave of guilt heaves up and I go out searching.
Knowing the reputation and talent behind the artist-owned Dead Reckoning label, I had high hopes for the new self-titled album from Tammy Rogers. I enjoyed her multi-instrumental talents on the album In The Red with Don Heffington. But her skills as a lyricist don’t begin to come close to her abilities as a musician.
The lyrics on this album, across the board, are sweet and simple and innocent. And dull. Dull dull dull. The plethora of uninteresting, sad love/breakup songs lack any sort of spunk that might make them more listenable. There’s not one iota of grit, and nice can only go so far.
Which doesn’t mean there isn’t anything to like on this album. It opens with a beautiful, Celtic-flavored instrumental called “Coming Home” and ends with a couple of sparse piano and string tunes that serve as the intro and outro to the song “Another Day”. The acoustic guitar and violin solos throughout the album have a delightful sound that’s not overproduced. Tammy also gets help from Victoria Williams, Emmylou Harris, Buddy and Judy Miller, Kim Richey, Jim Lauderdale, the Williams Brothers and her labelmates at Dead Reckoning.
Two songs on here, if given the Nashville treatment, could be Young Country smash hits. Both “Oh Heartache” and “Ticket To Heaven” have hooks that compete with today’s chart-toppers. Meanwhile, though, I’ll wait for Rogers’ skills as a lyricist to improve, and listen to Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch back-to-back to help ease my female guilt.