| 'Hillbilly Queen: Carlene Carter' (Page Two) |
| Despite the influence of some of London's heaviest rockers, Carlene didn't stray too far from her roots, as included on Shapes were a rocked-up, synth-backed version of Johnny Cash's Ring Of Fire, a duet with Dave Edmunds on Richard Dobson's Baby Ride Easy (a hit in the US) and the Carter Family classic, Foggy Mountain Top. How difficult was it to achieve a balance between post-punk and pure country? "It wasn't difficult," she replies with an incredulous laugh. "It was just that it didn't fly on radio, or in Nashville. They wouldn't accept me as a country artist in 1979 or 1980. They said if I'd ever just straighten up and do a straight country album, I might be good." The album also included her own Appalachian Eyes and Too Bad About Sandy. In the aftermath of k.d. lan, Nanci Griffith and Mary-Chapin Carpenter, it can now be seen as a blueprint for what would later be called New Country. As a result, by 1980 Carlene was being hailed as one of the queens of the post-rockabilly age. Her next album, Blue Nun, was an explicit celebration of sex that subordinated her country influences to Lowe's obsession for 1960 R&B. Hardly surprising, as Lowe had co-written nearly half of the songs on it. It also spawned the single, Do Me Lover, which mad the US country chart that year. But, despite soulful help from Squeeze's Paul Carrack, the album was not as well-received as her earlier outings. "Basically, I was just searching for a certain cross between what I felt naturally and what was happening in the world. It was normal for me to want to fit in someplace and I didn't fit in country, so the recore companies were suggesting that I go more rock. It was just kind of a dizzy time." |
| Just when she seemed to be rejecting her country roots for good and all, Carlene joined the Carter-Cash family on stage at the Wembley Country Music Festival during their 1981 UK tour to sing Will The Circle Be Unbroken. In the meantime, her own live shows were always first class, and included a now almost mandatory lineup of muscians from The Rumour and Rockpile, although by this time her marriage to Nick Lowe was on the rocks. 1983 saw the release of C'Est C Bon on Epic. Originally to be called Gold Miner's Daughter, it would be her last album until I Fell In Love seven years later. "Eventually, it got to where it worked against me," she recalls, "because I did four or five albums over there where I kept getting further and further away from where I felt the most comfortable." The following year Carlene won acclaim for her role as a waitress in the London cast of Pump Boys And Dinettes starring Paul Jones and Kiki Dee. She also made a short film based on one of the songs from Shapes entitled Too Drunk To Remember, which was seen at the London Film Festival, and was to star in the London musical, Angry Housewives, in 1986. But she quit during the first week of rehearsals, returning to the States later that year to tour with the Carter Family once more, and even recording with them on their Carter Family album release of 1988. "I'd worked with them several times throughout my life until I was about 30," says Carlene. "Then when I was about 31 or 32 I came back to America and worked with them for a couple of years. "I wanted to do that then," she says reflectively, "because I was really payin' a lot of attention to what was goin' on and I wanted to learn about my heritage and stuff." Then, in 1990, she made a devastating return with her first solo country album, I Fell In Love, enchanting both the music industry and the record-buying public. Produced by Tom Petty's bass player, Howie Epstein, I Fell In Love was a celebration of Carlene's country music heritage and featured old friends Dave Edmunds, Kiki Dee, Albert Lee and Jim Keltner. Songs like Me And The Wildwood Rose and Guardian Angel demonstrated admirably her potential to be a fine country songwriter with a multitude of experiences to draw on. The album won her a Grammy Award nomination in 1991 for Country Female Performance, as well as an Academy of Country Music nomination for Best New Female Vocalist the same year. Time magazine called it "a world-beater". "Howie and I started workin' together about five years ago, and I Fell In Love came out three years ago," she says, bringing things up to date. "Country music had taken a little bit of a turn, and even though I Fell In Love was a very country song, it just had and energy to it that was a little edgy for them (Nashville). At first I think they thought, 'Oh gosh, what are we doin' here?' But it worked out real well." Carlene's latest album, Little Love Letters, also produced by Howie Epstein, has placed her in the forefront of country music, and is probably her finest recording since the criminally ingnored Musical Shapes. It's a rich musical potpurri of rockabilly, country, rock and pop styles that highlight and underline here sharp-witted observations on real life in the 1990s. From the opening detonation of Little Love Letter No. 1 and Every Little Thing through the bluesy ballads like the stunning Unbreakable Heart, the acoustic hot gospel number, Hallelujah In My Heart and the concluding Heart Is Right, every track on the album is polished to a professional brilliance. this is due not only to Carlene's vocal performances and material, of which all but one track was co-written by her, but also to some heavyweight musical assistance from Albert Lee, Benmont Tench (also one of Tom Petty's boys) and veteran bassist Willie Weeks. Her co-writers include Epstein, Tench, Al Anderson of NRBQ, her best friend of 17-years standing Anni O'Brien, and Radney Foster. "I didn't know Radney real good but we became pretty good friends in a very short time," she says earnestly. "We've always kinda wanted to work together. He came over around noon and we ended up spendin' all day long talkin' our heads off in my kitchen, and somewhere in there we wrote I Love You 'Cause I Want To. All during that time Howie was callin' up and cheerleading us on through the writing session over the telephone from California. It was pretty funny way to be doin' it. "By the time my kids came home from school Radney and I were standing up in the kitchen with our acoustic guitars, just rockin' out and dancin' around, and the kids said, 'Gosh, he's pretty fine!" |
 |