Melissa Etheridge - 4th Street Feeling reviews, This album's dramatic opening track, "Kansas City," finds Melissa Etheridge recalling a youthful journey to freedom fueled by "Lucky Charms and Tic Tacs and Mom's amphetamines" in her "old man's Delta 88.
" Such autobiographical musing deepens Etheridge's 12th disc, which also expands her sonic palette. She plays all the guitars, a first, and producers Jacquire King (Kings of Leon) and Steve Booker (Duffy) deftly curb her over-the-top tendencies. "Be Real" is spare and funky, "Enough Rain" raw and folky. The restraint serves her well. She's realized that sometimes holding a little back can make what's there hit with all the more force.
What’s the 4th Street Feeling?
“4th Street is in Leavenworth,” says Melissa Etheridge.
That’s her home town in Kansas, pop. 35,000, known mostly for its prison and Army base.
And it’s the place evoked in the title, and title song, of 4th Street Feeling, the 12th studio album of her singular, 25-year recording career.
“It’s kind of the main drag, starting in the old downtown,” she says of her old stomping grounds. “I remember the first McDonald’s in town there. The town’s pretty small. That’s where we would hang out, the Burger King parking lot, the football games. Everything was on Fourth Street. That’s where we would cruise. And then it turns into Highway 7 that goes out of town to Kansas City.”
That’s exactly where the album opens, with the bluesy, harmonica-spiced “Kansas City.” The scene is set with Etheridge driving in “my old man’s Delta 88,” reliving road-trips fueled on “Lucky Charms, Tic Tacs and Mom’s amphetamines.” Only this time, the woman who left Leavenworth for Hollywood years ago is taking herself — and us — home. It’s a trip to where she’s from. But also a trip to where she’s headed.
There are “all the untold lies of my misspent youth,” as she sings in the funky coming-of-age tale “The Shadow of the Black Crow,” a song in the storytelling tradition of such cherished artists as the Eagles and Bob Seger. There is the demand to “Be Real” (“You can’t manufacture me, because I like it naturally”), a song in which she says she nods lovingly to the sultry, sexy soul of Rufus with Chaka Khan and Sly and the Family Stone. And she voyages into new territories of folky rock with the first single, “Falling Up,” a joyful, upbeat track featuring her spirited recording debut on the banjitar, a hybrid banjo-guitar.
The fuel for this trek is her inner strength and confidence. In part it comes from recognition — 2011 has seen her awarded with a star on the Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame, and in the Fall of 2012 she will be honored by the National Women’s Museum of Art in Washington, DC.
In the wake of the mind-numbing production and melodramatic lyric excess that wrecked 2010's Fearless Love, Melissa Etheridge's 4th Street Feeling looks back, both biographically and musically. The title of the album is named for the main drag in her hometown of Leavenworth, Kansas, and her upbringing is referenced on several tracks. Recorded with her road band in Nashville, Etheridge played all the guitars herself (for the first time) as well as harmonica and keyboards.
The set was produced (mostly) by Jacquire King; Steve Booker helmed the title track and "Be Real," and Etheridge co-produced. Looking to her roots proves a solid strategy. The musical ones are both her own -- as in her first two albums -- as well as those of her inspirations including the Eagles, Bob Seger, and Chaka Khan. The rootsy rockers work best. "Kansas City," with its upfront assault guitars ringing out over a rumbling bassline and a strident (but not anthemic) chorus kicks things off.
The title track, with its Rhodes piano, contains an easy soul groove and lyrics that reflect on past innocence as a motivating factor for a simpler life in the present. The grain of her voice is unaffected and balanced against the fingerpopping vamp. The bluesy undertow in the sinister "The Shadow of a Black Crow," is swampier than anything Etheridge has ever recorded, yet the chorus hook brings it right back into her comfort zone.
"Be Real" is deep and funky in its restrained, sparse way, with great wah-wah effects. The country tinge on "Falling Up," with its syncopated skittering drums and the banjitar (a banjo body on a guitar's neck) would fit perfectly within the identity crisis that is contemporary country. Likewise the largely acoustic "I Can Wait," with its restraint, emotional conviction, and soulful expression is the subtlest moment here -- and among the finest. But not everything works.
"Shout Now," a rocker, is an exercise in self-indulgent production; it feels out of place on the first half of the record -- despite the display of Etheridge's considerable guitar chops. "Sympathy" sounds like she's trying -- way too hard -- to imitate the rock & roll rave-up style Joan Jett possesses effortlessly. "Scared Heart" begins as a dirty ass roots rocker but loses focus and becomes yet another of her "I Am...." anthems; its overblown production forms the sincerity and militancy she's trying to get across. Conversely,
"Rock N Roll Me" is a simple blues, with excellent guitar work that showcases the expansive natural range of expression in Etheridge's voice. Stripped to the bone, it's a sexy, sultry love song that sends the set off on a high note. Despite its several missteps, 4th Street Feeling is largely a return to form for Etheridge; a record that reaffirms her place as a songwriter and recording artist who is in a class of her own
" Such autobiographical musing deepens Etheridge's 12th disc, which also expands her sonic palette. She plays all the guitars, a first, and producers Jacquire King (Kings of Leon) and Steve Booker (Duffy) deftly curb her over-the-top tendencies. "Be Real" is spare and funky, "Enough Rain" raw and folky. The restraint serves her well. She's realized that sometimes holding a little back can make what's there hit with all the more force.
What’s the 4th Street Feeling?
“4th Street is in Leavenworth,” says Melissa Etheridge.
That’s her home town in Kansas, pop. 35,000, known mostly for its prison and Army base.
And it’s the place evoked in the title, and title song, of 4th Street Feeling, the 12th studio album of her singular, 25-year recording career.
“It’s kind of the main drag, starting in the old downtown,” she says of her old stomping grounds. “I remember the first McDonald’s in town there. The town’s pretty small. That’s where we would hang out, the Burger King parking lot, the football games. Everything was on Fourth Street. That’s where we would cruise. And then it turns into Highway 7 that goes out of town to Kansas City.”
That’s exactly where the album opens, with the bluesy, harmonica-spiced “Kansas City.” The scene is set with Etheridge driving in “my old man’s Delta 88,” reliving road-trips fueled on “Lucky Charms, Tic Tacs and Mom’s amphetamines.” Only this time, the woman who left Leavenworth for Hollywood years ago is taking herself — and us — home. It’s a trip to where she’s from. But also a trip to where she’s headed.
There are “all the untold lies of my misspent youth,” as she sings in the funky coming-of-age tale “The Shadow of the Black Crow,” a song in the storytelling tradition of such cherished artists as the Eagles and Bob Seger. There is the demand to “Be Real” (“You can’t manufacture me, because I like it naturally”), a song in which she says she nods lovingly to the sultry, sexy soul of Rufus with Chaka Khan and Sly and the Family Stone. And she voyages into new territories of folky rock with the first single, “Falling Up,” a joyful, upbeat track featuring her spirited recording debut on the banjitar, a hybrid banjo-guitar.
The fuel for this trek is her inner strength and confidence. In part it comes from recognition — 2011 has seen her awarded with a star on the Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame, and in the Fall of 2012 she will be honored by the National Women’s Museum of Art in Washington, DC.
In the wake of the mind-numbing production and melodramatic lyric excess that wrecked 2010's Fearless Love, Melissa Etheridge's 4th Street Feeling looks back, both biographically and musically. The title of the album is named for the main drag in her hometown of Leavenworth, Kansas, and her upbringing is referenced on several tracks. Recorded with her road band in Nashville, Etheridge played all the guitars herself (for the first time) as well as harmonica and keyboards.
The set was produced (mostly) by Jacquire King; Steve Booker helmed the title track and "Be Real," and Etheridge co-produced. Looking to her roots proves a solid strategy. The musical ones are both her own -- as in her first two albums -- as well as those of her inspirations including the Eagles, Bob Seger, and Chaka Khan. The rootsy rockers work best. "Kansas City," with its upfront assault guitars ringing out over a rumbling bassline and a strident (but not anthemic) chorus kicks things off.
The title track, with its Rhodes piano, contains an easy soul groove and lyrics that reflect on past innocence as a motivating factor for a simpler life in the present. The grain of her voice is unaffected and balanced against the fingerpopping vamp. The bluesy undertow in the sinister "The Shadow of a Black Crow," is swampier than anything Etheridge has ever recorded, yet the chorus hook brings it right back into her comfort zone.
"Be Real" is deep and funky in its restrained, sparse way, with great wah-wah effects. The country tinge on "Falling Up," with its syncopated skittering drums and the banjitar (a banjo body on a guitar's neck) would fit perfectly within the identity crisis that is contemporary country. Likewise the largely acoustic "I Can Wait," with its restraint, emotional conviction, and soulful expression is the subtlest moment here -- and among the finest. But not everything works.
"Shout Now," a rocker, is an exercise in self-indulgent production; it feels out of place on the first half of the record -- despite the display of Etheridge's considerable guitar chops. "Sympathy" sounds like she's trying -- way too hard -- to imitate the rock & roll rave-up style Joan Jett possesses effortlessly. "Scared Heart" begins as a dirty ass roots rocker but loses focus and becomes yet another of her "I Am...." anthems; its overblown production forms the sincerity and militancy she's trying to get across. Conversely,
"Rock N Roll Me" is a simple blues, with excellent guitar work that showcases the expansive natural range of expression in Etheridge's voice. Stripped to the bone, it's a sexy, sultry love song that sends the set off on a high note. Despite its several missteps, 4th Street Feeling is largely a return to form for Etheridge; a record that reaffirms her place as a songwriter and recording artist who is in a class of her own
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