Jonell Mosser's new album is called Trust Yourself, and she's practicing what she preaches
by Jewly Hight
- The Decider: Jonell Mosser
Jonell Mosser's live shows hardly need an introduction, but her albums are another story. She's long been established as an earthy, vibrant and commanding performer—especially with her band, guitarist Tom Britt, bassist Steve Mackey and drummer Craig Krampf, behind her—and a 3rd & Lindsley fixture. Before that, there were regular gigs at the Bluebird and the Ace of Clubs, and she claims, quite plausibly, to have been the first act to play the 12th & Porter Playroom.
Despite loads of session singing behind Wynonna Judd, Etta James, Rodney Crowell and many others, though, Mosser's own discography is comparatively brief. Over two-plus decades in Nashville, she's only released a trio of albums. (At least one of those is out of print, and the last one came out eight years ago.) Three other Mosser projects—counting one with a short-lived super-group called the New Maroons, featuring Don Was and Ringo Starr—have yet to see the light of day.
So the fact that Mosser has just put out a fourth album, Trust Yourself, is newsworthy indeed. Besides that, it's easily her best to date, and a showcase of her unique contradictions: She's as flexible as she is stubborn.
The album clearly isn't the work of an eager, young singer, willing to let herself be molded into whatever sound or image might sell a few records (or downloads). Then again, that's never been Mosser. She was sure-footed and hard-headed from the get-go, the embodiment of the title track's stick-to-your-guns sentiment: a big-voiced rock singer with an R&B heart and faint country leanings, and determined to stay that way. These 12 tracks prove she has.
Mosser says the late country songwriting legend Harlan Howard advised her early on, "Just make a record and put some pedal steel on it—it'll be a country record."
Even hearing it from him, she wasn't convinced: "I wouldn't be happy trying to be a country music star. I really wouldn't. And I really felt that I would be interpreted as being false, and I just wasn't going to be that."
And yet Mosser has adapted in other ways. "When I first moved to Nashville, I did not consider myself a songwriter in any way, shape or form," she says. "I was purely an interpreter, because my friends were Townes Van Zandt and John Prine and people that I thought were real songwriters." But a friend convinced her to start writing years ago, and Trust Yourself features five originals.
There's still enough of a bold song interpreter in Mosser for her to take on songs identified with better known recording artists. The title track, for one, is a mid-'80s Bob Dylan number, and too many country and soul singers to count have taken Howard's "The Chokin' Kind" for a spin, from Waylon Jennings and Tanya Tucker, to Joe Simon and, more recently, Joss Stone.
"Well, I probably wouldn't do 'Piece of My Heart' or 'Respect' or anything," Mosser says. "I have to say this: I did Dan Penn's 'Do Right Woman' this weekend.... It wasn't anything like Aretha's version. It was more like Dan Penn's version, if it was anything. And it felt so right and so comfortable, I'm thinking about cutting it. I'm thinking about putting it in the show at least."
But the ultimate demonstration of Mosser's reach as a singer is the fact she can attack a song with singular intensity—even growl—yet also handle story-telling singer-songwriter fare. After all, her debut album, Around Townes, was all Townes Van Zandt songs.
On Trust Yourself, the songs "Bottom Rail" and "Livin' In the Devil's Hand" are nuanced historical narratives, one inspired by an escaped slave-turned Union soldier, and the other by a film plot during which a man ended up on a chain gang because he stole to feed his family. She bends particularly well to the requirements of "Bottom Rail," not bearing down too hard on any one phrase, but releasing them easily.
"I love learning words, I love having whole pieces of literature right there," says Mosser. "It's important to me. Have you ever heard that Tom Waits song 'Day After Tomorrow'? Oh, god. See, I heard that song and I had to learn it then."
The Waits composition in question is a rather quiet story-song about a soldier who's homesick and conflicted. The emotional weight definitely isn't carried by the melody, since there's not much of one to speak of—it's in the lyrics. So it says something that Mosser would hear the song and immediately want to add it to her repertoire.
But back to that stubbornness thing: You get the idea that Mosser makes her own rules about what she'll sing—and how—as much as anybody can and still make a living singing, one way or another.
"Here's the thing I did," she says. "I just decided I loved this town whether it loved me or not. And eventually it did."
Email music@nashvillescene.com.
Comments (1)
Showing 1-1 of 1
Well I sent a letter to the scene,but thought I should leave a comment here! Jonnell 's show in Louisville,Fri. night was great.Have not seen her in awhile and ,was not let down .Her band was very adept in letting her sing and dance like no tomorrow,without overpowering her vocals.Kudos to them! Thanks Jonnell. Bruce
like
dislike
