Vintage Review!!! – Tammy Cochran – “Life Happened”
Before I received Tammy’s new CD,I had only heard 2 of her songs, both beautiful country ballads “Angels in Waiting” and “Life Happened”, songs that were both very touching and emotional in different ways. I didn’t know what to expect,actually I expected what normally comes out of Nashville, a pop-country CD with string sections and hard rock guitars. That’s not what this CD is about, it mixes traditional country music with modern recording techniques and what you get is a high quality traditional sounding CD,maybe with with a little more of a beat, but not rock. You hear great pedal steel, mandolin, beautiful fiddle and dobro playing all around Tammy’s beautiful very emotive country voice.
The Theme of the CD is relationships, mostly broken ones and she does deviate from the theme on a couple of the songs. Tammy wrote 4 of the songs herself.
“Go Slow” is a nice slow paced , very country song that she wrote which talks about the emotional side of what it’s like to first fall in love and wanting it to last by going slow.
“What Kind of Woman Would I Be” (Phillips,Hurt) is a song she chose because she could relate to it and also because it’s a good song. Mid-tempo with some great lead guitars, the song talks about divorce and moving on.
“White Lies and Picket Fences” (Brown,Lane,Powell) is a great heartbreak song. This song has some great lyric and musical hooks. Nice pedal steel and mandolin. The song ends up with her getting the short end of the stick. This song is from another era lyrically speaking. The Chorus is brilliant.
“Used to Be that Woman” is a song that Tammy wrote inspired while sitting in the Bluebird Cafe’ and someone pointed out a Songwriter’s wife and two kids and girlfriend in the same room. Because she had come from a marriage with an unfaithful spouse, it inspired her to write the song because that same situation had probably happened to her. She wrote the song in a hotel room on post-it notes. It’s an up tempo song which makes her vocals central and has some beautiful acoustic guitars.
“I’m Getting There” (Follese,Crain) is an upbeat song about the period of healing after a relationship ends and moves on,great guitar and dobro work.
“If You Can” (Swinea) is the first single Tammy ever released she wanted to include it on this CD as a bonus track. Real traditional sounding tune about love going wrong it also sounds like a song from a different era.
“Life Happened” (Matthews,Phillips) The songs were all picked and then this gem came along and Tammy said that something else had to go to make room for this song, because this song reminds me of everybody that I know. The rest is history, it’s a song that most of us can relate to,”Shattered Dreams” that lead to our real lives,awesome song(my personal favorite).
Oh,yeh,the other songs are good too. Overall,this is a very good CD that deserves a lot of airplay. Tammy and her producer Billy Joe Walker Jr. have made the best country album on a major label that I have heard in a long time. Go visit Tammy at www.TammyCochran.com
Jim