| 'High-Bred Country Punk' (Page Two) |
 |
| Carlene wrote a song about it all, 'Too Bad About Sandy'. Some of the lyrics go like this: Sandy lost her head to a man with no heart Believe me I know 'cause I inflicted his scar I'm not ashamed 'cause I'm not to blame It was purely self-defense that shot that sucker down in flames. Love that cold cash Love that cold hard cash Why mess around with American Express? I'm in the low life Love that sweet low life Glad I'm not mad It's just too bad about Sandy. |
| Her second album, 'Two Sides To Every Woman', was, like so many second albums, something of a fiasco, but by the time her third, 'Musical Shapes', arrived on the marketplace, she had married Nick Lowe, settled into the Chiswick life, pulled various elements of her personal and professional life together, and became almost a fixture on the music scene in her own right. 'Musical Shapes' is a tough album, and it's also revealing. Produced by Nick Lowe with most of his usual English buddies (including his rockabilly alter-ego Dave Edmunds) in tow, it features no less than seven songs written by Carlene herself. Her previous albums were mostly written by others. Together with Nick Lowe's extremely sympathetic production, this fact leads to the notion that perhaps 'Musical Shapes' is a much more accurate account of what Carlene wants to do with her music than either 'Carlene Carter' or 'Two Sides To Every Woman'. "Yes," says Carlene, "that's what it is." The first one was OK, but it was the producer's first production job, and I think it kinda got away from us. The point was to make a country record with a rock band, which is a really hard thing to do, and it didn't work too well. The second--well, it was a mess. I did it in New York with a bunch of session people, and it seemed to me like it was one of those 'oh, let's cross her over' deals. I can't even listen to it now. But this one was different. First, Nick's a great producer--he knows country and he knows rock, and he's totally obsessive about getting things right. Then, he really gave me my head, y'know? I mean, I was as much in control as he was. Also, he never worried about 'Is this song country or is it pop or is it rock?' He just did it." The album is quite a joy. Nick and the boys, Englishmen infatuated as only the English seem to be with the lost sounds and textures fo classic American late-rockabilly music went nice and easy on the instrumental backup but stayed very much on the rhythmic ball, supporting Carlene to a T. Carlene, in turn, sophisticated her songs, injected far more country-type feeling than ever before, and sang with greatly enhanced control and subtlety. Many of the songs are tight, incisive, and highly intelligent, revealing a fine eye for both female and human concerns. All this said, then, we must turn to other matters. As Carlene asks, "Don't you want to hear any gossip, Patrick? Country Music is kind of a gossip magazine, isn't it?" Well, yes, it is, so let's have some gossip. The obvious gossip starter is, of course, the subject of Carlene, marriage and men. One hardly knows where to begin, so one begins at the beginning. Why did Carlene get married at the age of fifteen? She gives me a pitying look. "Well," she says, "there's only two reasons why as fifteen-year-old girl gets married--she's either stupid or pregnant. I was both." She adds that it was her first serious sexual experience which got her pregnant. "How did Mom and The Man in Black take the news?" I ask. "John took it pretty well," she says. "He was the first one I told. I couldn't tell June, I just couldn't, so I told John first, and he told June. In many ways, Momma's really naive. Like, after she knew, she went out and got all this information about birth control for me. It must have been real hard for her, but she did it. I dunno--maybe she learned more than I did from it." Oh. Yes, maybe. We already know about the foate of that first marriage--Carlene says that she hardly remembers it--but what about the marriage to Jack Routh? Is it true that the marriage dissolved because of professional rivalry? "It was partly that," says Carlene, "but it sure wasn't because I was jealous of him. It was just weird. I mean, he's weird." She adds that Southern men tend to want their wives to stay home and be humble, and she snorts disdainfully when she remembers her first meeting with Ralph Emery, the famous big-time radio personality and Nashville hotshot. His greeting to her was, "Oh, yes, you're the girl that did Jack wrong." She also remembers the scene in the courtroom when, once married to her little sister Cindy, Jack Routht won custody of his and Carlene's son, Jackson. Here was a situation in which the ex-husband of the big sister was fighting her for custody of her-and-his child so that the child could live with him and the little sister. Carlene says that the judge didn't know about the big sister-little sister arrangement until the decision was made, and recalls the pain of listening to Cindy testifying against her. |