Hailing from Phoenix, Arizona and now based in Seattle, just 26, Honest Life is Courtney Marie Andrews’ sixth album in seven years, a coming of age confessional collection informed by her lengthy time on the road and her recent heartbreak, reflective and insightful, accepting of what has gone before and hopeful for the future. At times evocative of early Emmylou, at others Nanci Griffith, she has a fine twang to her trebly voice, put to the service of songs that range stylistically from folk to Americana.
It’s a folksy note that gets the ball rolling with soulful slow walking road trip number Rookie Dreaming, somewhat recalling the young Joni Mitchell as she sings “I am a passenger to somewhere, I do not yet know the name…I was on the hunt for visions out of reach.” Not The End follows, a written on the road aching end of relationship song, Steve Norman’s yearning pedal steel underscoring the chorus of “Didn’t think it was possible to lose you again, So won’t you hold me and tell me, That this is not the end.”
With Andre Butler’s organ complementing Charles Wicklander’s piano, Irene evokes the country soul of the 70s, the lyrics parting words to the titular character as she leaves town, advising her to find confidence, let her voice speak out and never “follow any path half-heartedly”, but also warning “You are a magnet, Irene. Sometimes good people draw troublesome things.”
A more direct Emmylouish country feel inhabits the uptempo How Quickly Your Heart Mends (as premiered on FRUK) as, having dressed up in an attempt to impress an ex fails to do the trick, “like all those years meant nothin’”, she talks of mentally crossing out his name, holding on to her self-respect and moving on, albeit tempering this with the lines “The jukebox is playin’ a sad country song, for all the ugly Americans. Now I feel like one of them, dancin’ alone and broken by the freedom.”
Memories of lost love is also the focus of the masterfully sung, steel and piano accompanied heartfelt ballad, Let The Good One Go (“I’d be lying if I said you ain’t been on my mind. They say a goodbye is a goodbye, that my heart won’t ache, all it will take is time. But I’d like to think pain ain’t that black and white.”), consoling herself with the thought that he’s “let a good one go.”
Staying in low-key ballad mode, the introspective hymnal-tinged title track is a masterpiece, both as a song and performance, offering up the hard-earned wisdom that “how to be honest, how to be wise, how to be a good friend, some things take a lifetime to fully understand.”
The loneliness of life on the road is the focus of the steel-streaked, brushed snare shuffling Table For One, delivering a sting in the tail that undercuts the romantic image of the travelling troubadour, “You don’t wanna be like me. This life it ain’t free, always chained to when I leave.”
Driven by William Mapp’s military drum beat, bolstered by piano and electric guitar, the melody tumbling Put The Fire Out picks up the tempo somewhat for a song about being ready to put an end to restlessness, move on and live in the now (“I’ve been lost and I’m ready to be found”, or, more to the point, go back home, “pick up the phone and return your calls, tell you how much I love you all.”
It’s a theme that carries over into the counting down slow build of 15 Highway Lines, another road song, that opens with absence (“I’m like a tethered ball you can never catch”) but ends on the upbeat “For once, this head has somewhere to lay. In the arms of my long lost honey babe.”
The album ends on a wistful, reflective bittersweet reverie with the simple piano, guitar and strings arrangement of Only In My Mind. It’s a traditional folk meets sweeping show tune ballad in which she describes a “dreamy happy ending”, sharing a house in a grove with a lover who’s forgiven all her mistakes, the narrator finding herself a better person “never judgmental or stubborn. Always gracious, giving and kind”, for it all to be only in her mind, a sort of Wizard of Oz where Dorothy realises what she has lost but never gets to go home. It’s a stunning heartbreaking close to a magnificent album. On the title track she sings how “some people take a little more time to grow”; after standing in the shadows of success playing with the likes of Jimmy Eat World and Damien Jurado, the time has come for her to be bathed in her own spotlight.
Honest Life is released 20 January 2017 via Loose Music
KEXP Session:
UK & European Tour Dates
Feb 21 – Norwich Arts Centre, Norwich, UK
Feb 22 – RNCM Concert Hall, Manchester, UK
Feb 23 – St Luke’s, Glasgow, UK
Feb 24 – The Caves, Edinburgh, UK
Feb 25 – The Sage Gateshead, Hall 2, Gateshead, UK
Feb 26 – Old Cinema Launderette, Durham, UK
Feb 27 – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, UK
Feb 28 – Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff, UK
Mar 01 – The Tin at The Coal Vaults, Coventry, UK
Mar 02 – Union Chapel, London, UK
Mar 03 – Concorde 2, Brighton, UK
Mar 04 – The Keep, Guildford, UK
Mar 06 – The Social, London, UK
Mar 08 – Theater Die Wohngemeinschaft, Cologne, Germany
Mar 09 – Luxor Live, Arnhem, Netherlands
Mar 10 – De Spot, Middelburg, Netherlands
Mar 12 – Ancienne Belgique (AB), Brussels, Belgium
Mar 14 – Molen de Ster, Utrecht, Netherlands
Mar 15 – Moskus, Trondheim, Norway
Mar 16 – Buckley’s Pub, Oslo, Norway
Mar 17 – Folk å Rock, Malmö, Sweden
Mar 18 – Pustervik, Gothenburg, Sweden
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www.courtneymarieandrews.com
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