Irene Kelley ‘s “Pennsylvania Coal” Album Review
Every genre wants to own
Irene Kelley. Her effervescent pure
vocals like the virgin waters gushing out of the mountain peaks make it the
perfect vehicle to carry a bluegrass tune especially those with an Appalachian
charm. Her ability to weave vignettes of
life into her narrative songs with keening observations is what makes country
music flourish. Yet, the first genre
that had had ever laid a claim on Irene Kelley is heavy metal. Back in High School, Kelley started playing
in a Led Zeppelin cover band only to be kicked out of it when she suggested
that they do a Dolly Parton piece. Ever
since, Kelley has made a name for herself as one of Nashville’s finest
scribes. Over the years, she has had written
songs for Loretta Lynn (“Hold Her”), Alan Jackson (“A Little Bluer Than That”),
Trisha Yearwood (“Second Chance” and ‘O Mexico”) among many others. Though she has had a few false starts, Kelley
has finally been able to bless us with two albums of her own; both of which
have been national treasures in the world of country/bluegrass music.
“Pennsylvania Coal” is
Kelley’s long awaited follow-up since “Thunderbird” which was released a decade
ago. Kelley has proven the adage right:
third time’s the charm. If her previous
albums demonstrate chapters of greatness, “Pennsylvania Coal” is the textbook of
everything a sublime bluegrass cum country ought to sound like. Just like what Kathy Mattea did with her
record “Coal,” Kelley has allowed her hillbilly soul to skip back to her home town
where she unearth some of her own stories of the joys and tribulations of growing
up in a coal mining town. And when
Kelley re-paints her stories, she hardly paints in large and broad
strokes. Rather, she intricately outlines
her plot before slowly coloring into each character the different emotional
shades that often brings tears to our eyes and celebratory joy to our
souls. With a sepia tone underpinning,
Kelley gently takes us back to the time of her grandparents in the title cut “Pennsylvania
Coal.” Like the unrolling of a movie reel, she brings us into the struggles of how
her Polish grandparents bought a 200-acre farm in Crabtree in order to raise
eight children. The way they struggled
to make ends meet with her granddad later dying of lung cancer after the years
of working in a coal mine just makes it hard not to fight back the tears.
Melancholy gets more attention
with “Feels Like Home.” Not the Linda
Ronstadt tune of the same titular, “Feels Like Home” is a Peter Cooper and Kelley
original that speaks of how things do not stay the same with the passing of
time. Slightly more propulsive via its
chugging rhythm but still as morose in terms of its lyrical content is the
banjo and fiddled led “You Don’t Run Across Your Mind.” While many artists are
often so self-indulgent in telling their own stories that they don’t engage much
of the listener, this is not the case with Kelley. With the heart-wrenching ballad “Things We
Never Did,” it is as if Kelley has read our personal blogs when she, David
Olney and John Hatley re-visit the various “what if” scenarios of our
lives. What if we dated so and so. What if we have followed the path less
travelled. What ifs have never pierced
our hearts the way it does on “Things We Never Did.”
You can’t listen to a
Kelley album without traverse with her all over the emotional map. And she does make an occasional stop on a
more joyous spot with “You Are Mine.”
Sounding like the 21st Century of the famed trio of Emmylou
Harris, Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt, here Kelley joins voices with her
daughters Justyna and Sara Jean on this beautiful ode to friendship, love and
togetherness. With “Angels with Us” she
pays her tribute a generation back where she sings of her mother’s teaching to
her that God will never leave us alone in our times of need. In short, this is an album that will get us
crying, laughing and thinking, not because it is emotionally manipulative. But because it captures with details of what
life is all about.
No comments:
Post a Comment