TOP FIVE ALBUMS FROM SINGER-SONGWRITERS

There’s no shortage of local singer-songwriters who are capable of telling a believable story, but some of the most affecting albums released this year were made by those who put their songs to tape in a distinctive style, whether they were mining a vintage ethos or improving on fragments of older sounds.

TAKE ME OUT TO HEAR THE BANDJulie Lee (Self-released)Lee had a good year with a pair of Alison Krauss cuts, but she also made a thoroughly pleasing set of swinging old-time pop. Sassing and sweet-talking lovers and friends with a fluttery, brassy elegance, Lee savors the quirks and perks of relationships on tracks such as “My Old Friend” and “Before You Came Along,” all sweetened by the womanly lift of close harmonies, muted horns and jazzy banjo ukulele.

THE RINGING BELLDerek Webb (INO)Webb made a solid, politically inflected pop record this year, complete with a visceral black, white and red graphic novel illustrating the lyrics. He pulls no punches on the throat-scraping blues of “A Savior on Capitol Hill,” taking swipes at the malicious interweaving of religious and political rhetoric. But he wasn’t only in a political headspace on this one—there are a few endearing love songs too.

ROOM TO GROWAdrienne Young (AddieBelle)Metaphors of growth and greenery are appropriate for Young, and not just because she’s donating part of the proceeds of her third album to sustainable agriculture. It’s also about expanding outward and upward from the roots. Here she further refines her already melodic approach to folk-pop and taps into the rawer edge of her supple voice. It’s Young’s first album produced without the help of Will Kimbrough, and she relies a little less on the traditional instrumentation used in the past, but there are still some nice spare moments, like the nostalgic, fiddle-sweetened ballad “River and a Dirt Road.”

DEAD LANGUAGEK.S. Rhoads (Alex the Great Recordings)Rhoads has the unique ability to blend emotional sensitivity, darkly meditative philosophizing and swaggering, hip-hop-influenced vocal phrasing and grooves. It all starts with “Dark Hotel”: Rhoads’ singing sounds close and intimate even as he glides and pushes against the drums’ lazy syncopation, while the strings pipe in with cursive, foreboding patterns. “The Bayonet and the Cigarette” wields a double-edged sword—squalling bottleneck guitar and barbed, sung-spoken observations about war, poverty and religion.

FRESH PAIR OF EYESBrooke Waggoner (Self-released)Fresh Pair of Eyes isn’t actually a full-length but a six-song EP. But Waggoner’s brief set of baroque, richly orchestrated piano pop is fetching enough to deserve a mention. On a song like “Wonder-Dummied,” her nimble, ornate playing leads a mini-rock-orchestra through quick and varied movements, from her gentle, pensive solo chording and heavy-hearted exhales to an almost Morricone-esque Western gallop. Not all pianists who’ve solidified their playing style classically could resist overplaying as she does.

—JEWLY HIGHT

FIVE RECORDS MADE IN NASHVILLE THAT DON’T SOUND LIKE NASHVILLE

Although Nashville’s music scene is too varied to be pinned down to a specific style or sound, some Music City-recorded efforts breathe the city and others don’t. Here are five Nashville records that illustrate the power of an artist’s or producer’s individual vision, not an overbearing sense of place—which isn’t to say that we’re not proud they were done in our city.

SONG OF AMERICAVarious Artists (31 Tigers/Split Rock)Song of America, producers Ed Pettersen and David Macias’ attempt to encapsulate 500 years of this country’s history in 50 songs, serves as an all-purpose, all-ages fakebook for indie people. Devendra Banhart does superbly by “Little Boxes,” Malvina Reynolds’ look at post-Levittown America, and Andy Bey sings “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” like a depressed lounge lizard with a smoking piano-driven trio. Not every performance is inspired, but the selections add up to a nuanced account of this country’s march toward the light. And it sounds clear as a bell, thanks to the ministrations of former Motown engineer Bob Olhsson, who co-produced.

I AM THE MANSimone White (Honest Jon’s)“The American War” might be 2007’s loopiest protest song, unless it’s White’s “Great Imperialist State,” where she sings, “I’m a spoiled child of the great imperialist state / Cannot kill my meat nor grow the food upon my plate.” I Am the Man wobbles with lachrymose trombones on the cover of Goffin and King’s “I Didn’t Have Any Summer Romance.” Hawaii native White makes summer pop with a melancholy undertow, as on “Mary Jane,” a tale of self-invention featuring an indelible, haunting melody. Mark Nevers produced with his usual tact.

RADIO NOISEOde Hazelwood (Hokum House)Two former Belmont University students go crazy trying to come up with a combination of classic Brit Invasion songwriting and dark 1930s instrumentation. The result, Radio Noise, stands as one of the year’s strangest and most ambitious records, complete with producer Joe McMahan’s Optigan and toy piano. Pick to click: “O’ Disgrace (Newport News Blues).”

HANDS OFF CUBAHands Off Cuba (Self-released)You could be forgiven if you hear this as some great lost Tortoise recording, but these locals keep the 21-minute “Nately Scures”—the sole number on their debut EP—swinging throughout, and their music seems more expansive than that of the Chicago ensemble. It works pretty well as a dance track, too.

INTUITIONBetty Harris (Evidence)Best known for her New Orleans-recorded ’60s sides, Betty Harris is a big-voiced and long-suffering soul pro. Producer Jon Tiven works well with Harris on Intuition, with Jerry Ragovoy and Diane Durrett’s “It Is What It Is” a vehicle for her husky timbre and slightly indolent phrasing. The sitar-driven “Tell It to the Preacher Man” stands as a mindless, greasy Crescent City-style groove for today, if not the ages.

—EDD HURT

FIVE WOMEN THREATENING TO GIVE MAINSTREAM COUNTRY A GOOD NAME

While the guys compete to see which one can slather the most hair gel on his head without tipping over, women are busy trying—with varying degrees of success—to save contemporary country music from its own worst impulses. Three of the artists below have yet to sell many records, even though each makes polished, accessible music that expresses lyrical concerns familiar to radio programmers’ most important demographic (middle-aged women, that is). The other two do the same, and are also blonde. Make of this what you will.

UNGLAMOROUSLori McKenna (Warner Bros.)Faith Hill recorded three of Stoughton, Mass., singer-songwriter McKenna’s brilliant, almost painfully intimate songs in 2005. Next logical step: Hill’s husband, the similarly ubiquitous Tim McGraw, stepped in to co-produce McKenna’s first major-label album. Unglamorous employs the finesse and assurance of the Music Row machine without sacrificing the unflinching emotional honesty and attention to lyrical detail that are McKenna’s trademarks. Country radio seems uninterested, and it’s a shame—herself a mother of five, McKenna speaks to the preoccupations of its core listenership with a rare authenticity and empathy.

CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIENDMiranda Lambert (Columbia)At first, the title of Lambert’s sophomore effort seems arbitrary—named, as so many mainstream country albums are, for the first single (which undeservedly flopped anyway). But Crazy Ex-Girlfriend does come on like a tempestuous former lover: gently reflective one moment, threatening murderous vengeance the next. She had me at “His fist is big, but my gun’s bigger / He’ll find out when I pull the trigger.”

CARNIVAL RIDECarrie Underwood (Arista Nashville)Underwood’s sextuple-platinum debut, 2005’s Some Hearts, drew much of its charm from the clever ways in which it found parallels between the superficially dissimilar lives led by the American Idol winner and her audience—there were lots of songs about how it feels to be a young woman leaving home, learning about love and, um, vandalizing your ex’s pickup with a baseball bat. Carnival Ride is less personal and more professional, a successful claim on the territory of 1990s belters like Martina McBride and Trisha Yearwood. She isn’t doing anything new, but she sure does it well.

IF I WAS YOUR GIRLLauren Lucas (Soulthang)In the Music Row system, just because you get signed doesn’t mean you get to release an album—not unless you manage a hit single, anyway. Lauren Lucas’ 2005 album, The Carolina Kind, is still somewhere in the Warner Bros. vaults, probably buried under all those unreleased ’80s Prince tracks. Freed of her contractual obligations, Lucas at last made her proper debut this year with the smart, soulful and self-released EP If I Was Your Girl.

ALMOST MY RECORDSarah Buxton (Lyric Street)Nashville industry types already know that Buxton’s debut album teems with effervescent gems topped by the Kansas native’s irresistible sandpaper-sweet voice—advances have been circulating for more than a year. But her singles “Innocence” and “That Kind of Day” stalled at No. 31 and 26, respectively, so prospective record-buyers didn’t get the chance to purchase her wares until Lyric Street sneaked out the digital-only EP Almost My Record in July. Great! Now where’s the rest of it?

—CHRIS NEAL

BEST LOCAL COUNTRY, OFF THE ROW

Nashville’s corporate music core saturates the American media so pervasively that those residents who make more adventurous, less streamlined country music rarely get the attention given those from Texas and California. But it’s in the margins that the city’s best music is often made, whether it’s from legends who no longer benefit from the big-money well or from iconoclasts who willfully go their own way.

BALLSElizabeth Cook (31 Tigers)Cook’s pronounced down-home verve gives her a buoyant glow reminiscent of her in-your-face heroes Dolly and Loretta, but it’s what else she shares with her heroes that makes her work so singular. As a writer, she’s nervy and contemporary, speaking her mind in language she’d use while dishing gossip with friends, and as a performer, her charm comes from how she treats her lyrics, and her listeners, as companions that are endlessly delightful.

BURNT TOAST OFFERINGSGretchen Peters (Scarlet Letter)Like Matraca Berg and Leslie Satcher, Peters is a literate, colorful writer with a knack for blending powerful insights into everyday scenes. Like them, she’s also an intimate and compelling performer whose inflections bring out revelations that more strident singers bulldoze by. Her best collection of songs so far gains strength from the brilliantly understated touch of producer Doug Lancio.

SONGS FOR SOMEBODYBobby Pinson (Cash Daddy)In the ’70s or ’80s, Pinson’s muscular, boozily literate 2005 debut would’ve made him a critically acclaimed, blue-collar bard on the level of a young Steve Earle or Rodney Crowell. Instead, his boisterous style got him shoved off the big-label bus post-haste. But ornery guys who write this well aren’t just seeking the golden coin, so Pinson bounced right back with an equally well-worded look at losers who struggle to get back on track and winners who try not to let their weaknesses knock them off the rail.

SINGS MISS DIXIE AND TOM T.Tom T. Hall (Blue Circle)Other country legends drew more attention for high-profile turns with rock producers and big-name guests, but Hall’s outstanding, homemade album is the only one that sounds like the next step in an ongoing career. As good as Haggard’s acoustic outing, and even more steeped in bluegrass, this book-loving country squire’s latest blends true-life stories with acoustic country rave-ups celebrating backroads and counties far off the interstate trail.

BYRD’S AUTO PARTSJon Byrd (Longleaf Pine)A terse Telecaster master steps up to the mic for a twang-bar collection that criss-crosses punchy Bakersfield truckstop tunes with Texas dancehall twisters. The string-bending excellence is expected; what surprises is the penetrating power of his pen and entertaining quality of his voice.

—MICHAEL McCALL

BEST HOME-BREWED AMERICANA

Year after year, a good portion of Nashville’s best music falls between categories—or fits into this hard-to-define genre featuring artists who are easy to love but hard to find in the major media.

THERE I SAID IT!Tommy Womack (Cedar Creek)Wise, funny, heartbreaking and baldly honest, this veteran local rocker taps a deeper creative vein with autobiographical songs about a 40-something artist realizing he’s never going to fill arenas. Combining melodic acoustic pop, surging roots rock and harsh blues, he describes crappy jobs, nervous breakdowns and moments of familial bliss with a nervy truth, sweetness and irreverent humor.

RAISING SANDRobert Plant/Alison Krauss (Rounder)Mixing voodoo mystery and traditional-music mastery, the rock legend and the contemporary acoustic queen coo, moan, whisper and stomp on an album that vacillates between midnight rhythms and misty mountain harmony. T-Bone Burnett’s bottom-heavy, atmospheric production keeps the less-than-obvious covers from sinking into retro kitsch, while allowing both singers to reveal what they’d previously hidden.

ONE TOUGH TOWNDavid Olney (Red Parlor Town)Olney brings carnival-barker theatrics to these honking blues about high-stakes gamblers and low-rent hustlers set to music that has a vaudevillian grandness and a touch of Dixieland glee. Olney’s always shown the dark lining of those who survive on guile, as well as evoking the sublime tenderness of those who believe in love. This time, he gives it all an intoxicating, big-top spin.

STRANGE NAMES AND NEW SENSATIONSSteve Forbert (429) Forbert examines middle age with the careful observation and positive outlook he once gave to the youthful pursuit of affection and adventure. He acknowledges the clouds, whether through the death of a favored artist or the doom of a reckless war, but his sprightly acoustic melodies and wry take on daily life bask in the sun.

BETWEEN DAYLIGHT AND DARKMary Gauthier (Lost Highway) After a remarkable series of personal albums, Gauthier branches out, writing character sketches and story songs that shake off the dark blues arrangements of her past while searching for a more mysterious manner to discuss an individual’s, and a culture’s, ongoing struggle between self-destruction and self-revelation.

—MICHAEL McCALL

NINE THINGS THAT MADE NASHVILLE BLUEGRASS CITY, USA IN 2007

Their partisans may point to places like the Baltimore-DC-Virginia corridor or Bill Monroe’s birthplace in Kentucky as the true homes of bluegrass, but they’re wrong. The ultimate center of bluegrass action is right here, and 2007 provided ample proof yet again.

Jan. 18: To the delight of an audience that included a clutch of high-powered colleagues, Ricky Skaggs and Bruce Hornsby tore up The Factory while taping a CMT Crossroads appearance. Those who contented themselves with observing that the project “ain’t bluegrass” proved only that they were missing the point.

Feb. 13: Youthful sextet The Infamous Stringdusters released their full-length debut CD before embarking on a year’s worth of take-no-prisoners touring. The title track (written by locals Chris Jones and John Pennell) earned Song of the Year at the IBMA awards in October, while the disc tied with Hall of Famer J. D. Crowe’s latest release for Album of the Year honors.

Feb. 23: The Station Inn witnessed the debut of a new and Nashville-heavy lineup of the venerable Lonesome River Band. Guitarist, lead singer and ace songwriter Brandon Rickman’s return to the group was underpinned by the addition of bassist Mike Anglin in a role for which he seems to have spent much of his career preparing, and the combination muscled up the LRB’s already fearsome drive to a new level.

March 27: The Country Music Hall of Fame released the first two volumes of long-awaited DVDs featuring episodes from Flatt & Scruggs’ early-’60s Martha White TV shows. Monroe may have been the Father of Bluegrass, but these shows are a potent reminder that the Nashville duo were its foremost ambassadors.

June 26: Russ Barenberg released his first solo effort in nearly 20 years. Though the guitarist hadn’t exactly abandoned public performance, it still qualified as a re-emergence—and as a testimonial to the way that musical friendships forged years ago can simmer in the background here before bursting into the open again.

Sept. 18: Jim Lauderdale and Larry Cordle, two of the city’s most distinctive singers and songwriters, released bluegrass albums showing that outsiders who see the genre as hopelessly narrow and tradition-bound—or Nashville as hopelessly “commercialized”—don’t know what they’re talking about.

Sept. 23-25: Forget Nickel Creek’s Ryman farewell—this stretch of concerts at the Station Inn by Chris Thile’s band, The Punch Brothers, was more germane to the city’s bluegrass rep. Building on material from Thile’s 2006 bluegrass album, the shows included renditions of ’grass standards that had exactly the right blend of reverence and playfulness.

Oct. 4: Homegrown favorites The Grascals capped a big year that included late-night TV appearances with Dierks Bentley and heavy touring by taking the IBMA’s top Entertainer of the Year award for the second time in a row.

—JON WEISBERGER