Artist: Mandy Barnett
Album: A Nashville Songbook
Label: Melody Place Music / BMG
Release Date: 08.21.2020
When Fred Mollin, my favorite producer for several decades now, announced last year he had signed my favorite vocalist, Mandy Barnett, to his new label, Melody Place Music, I said to myself, THERE IS a musical God somewhere. I knew Fred would be hands-on and attending to all those tiny details, listeners may take for granted, but which have to be in place to make great music truly soar. I also knew that Mandy would do so much more than just ice the cake with one of the most musical voices on this planet. She would take the ingredients Fred was bringing to the table to the limit.
This one started soaring, last fall when while laying tracks for a future torch song album, Barnett dipped into her historic Nashville rooted songbook and pulled out Skeeter Davis’ classic hit “ The End Of The World” It came off so well, that all agreed to do an entire collection of songs that have a connection to Nashville, going back to long before it was called “Music City” something she has been doing in her concerts for years.
The 13 cuts in A Nashville Songbook, all which were unforgettable hits, are just a snapshot of what this town has given to the world since the 1940s. Here, however, they are a stunning portrait of stick-in-your-head melodies and strong lyrics. All arranged with deep-rooted regards for the vocalists like Elvis, Anne Murray, BJ Thomas, Roy Orbison that recorded them and the tunesmiths like Boudleaux Bryant, Hank Williams, Harlan Howard and Francis Craig that created them. Craig, though not known like the first three, gave Nashville its first true smash hit recording in 1947, when his “Near You” stayed at Number 1 for 17 weeks. It went on to be covered for decades, again and again. On A Nashville Songbook, it swings way-out-West style. A true variety pack, there’s operatic ballads like Roy Orbison’s “It’s Over” and Brenda Lee’s “The Crying Game” and there’s the quiet longing of Kris Kristofferson’s “Help Me Make It Through The Night;” with longtime Mollin amigo, Matt McCauley’s string arrangement, the song is so in synch with Barnett’s musical gifts it leaves me hyperventilating.
Barnett uses her well-honed artistic instincts not to just put these songs across, she combines it with her incredible pipes to grand slam them out of the ballpark. A real musician himself, Mollin’s knowing which fantastic session musicians to call (like Gordon Mote, Bryan Sutton, Stuart Duncan, Eddie Bayers) and letting them shine, adding in stunning arrangements and at times totally fresh approaches, all added up to the 98 score, I had planned to give this. That was until I ran to the grocery store with the CD playing and a person parked next to me, busy loading groceries, heard a few seconds of the closing cut, when I opened my car door. It was Barnett with just Gordon Mote on piano, doing a gorgeous yet gut wrenching number on Hank William’s “I Can’t Help It If I’m Still In Love With You” The masked man exclaimed “WOW! WHO IS THAT?” I was more than happy to enlighten him, and BAM! he enlightened me with his priceless second opinion.
—Ken Spooner
Ken, you transported the readers to a high plateau, enticing them to fly on the vocal wings of MB to get there! It re-ignited my amazement with her music.