CD Odyssey Disc 1948: Carpenter, Fowlis, and Polwart

Welcome back to the Odyssey, where today we celebrate my favourite kind of supergroup – the obscure supergroup! Can you be obscure and still be a supergroup? Well, here on the CD Odyssey we say emphatically – yes!

In other news this is the fifth album of the last seven to be released in 2025, so if the thread you’re looking for is a common one – there you have it.

Disc 1948 is…Looking for the Thread

Artist: Mary Chapin Carpenter, Julie Fowlis, Karine Polwart

Year of Release: 2025

What’s up with the Cover? At first I thought this cover was a bunch of stars, but Sheila tells me these are birds, and I am inclined to agree.

How I Came To Know It: I am Mary Chapin Carpenter fan and I always give any new album from her a chance. This doesn’t always land like it used to, and I have only bought four of her last 11 records.

Enter, “Looking for the Thread” into this uncertain atmosphere, with a couple of additional musicians sharing the bill just to complicate matters further. How will it all pan out? Read on!

How It Stacks Up: I have nine Mary Chapin Carpenter albums, but this is a Carpenter/Fowlis/Polwart album. I’ve only got one of those, so it can’t stack up.

Ratings: 4 stars

I don’t know what inspired Mary Chapin Carpenter to share two thirds of her record with a couple of Scottish folk singers, but it breathes new life into her work almost forty years removed from her first record and brought two other talented singer-songwriters to my attention in the process.

Listening to Carpenter add Scots Gaelic inspiration to her work felt like a full circle moment for me. My first love of folk music came in the late eighties through the experience of Irish and Scottish folk artists. I ate up everything Clannad and Capercaillie could put out back then, as I weaned myself (temporarily as it turned out) from my heavy metal youth.

Carpenter was an early influence on me to expand my horizons westward, showing me that Americana folk music was equally compelling and worth my time and attention. All these years later, Carpenter returns me to my first love and infuses a new sound and approach into her own music in the process. Suffice it to say I was primed to like this record.

Things begin with Julie Fowlis putting new music to the traditional folk song, “Gradh Geal Mo Chridhe”. Stylistically, this song was an immediate trip down memory lane, with Fowlis’s voice pealing out into the night air (n.b. I listened during the day but the song has a “hear it at night” kind of vibe).

The low hum in the production, and the slow adding of instruments in the arrangement gives the song a building majesty that was everything I loved about Scottish music back in the day. It was like a lost lover returned from across the sea to serenade me. The whole tune is in Gaelic but you don’t need to understand the lyrics word for word for Fowlis to make you feel the feels. This song has romance in its bones.

The tune features a very resonant sounding fiddle, which I was to learn (via liner notes and a Youtube video) is Caomhin O’Raghallaigh playing an instrument called the ‘hardanger d’amore’. This is basically a big fiddle with some extra stings under the bridge that pick up the vibrations above and add extra oomph. I’d never heard of this thing before, but I was instantly enthralled with its haunting resonance.

After Fowlis lands a big moment in the record's opening notes, Mary Chapin Carpenter then joins the fray. “A Heart That Never Closes” features a list of domestic imagery all held together by the most powerful glue society ever concocted: the open heart. Fowlis (I think) comes in late with some well-placed whistle (the instrument, not the pursed lips) to add gravitas and colour in the edges.

Rounding out the record’s exceptional opening is Karine Polwart’s “Rebecca”, a song that takes on a bit of darkness, as the titular character is invited by her lover thusly:

“Trace your fingers along the scars
Where the cold steel tried to cut me down
They will never truly heal.”

The song never explains where these wounds came from, or what was sacrificed or won in the gaining of them. Maybe an old fighter home from the wars, maybe the result of a duel preserving Rebecca’s honour. It’s never said, but you can tell from the way Polwart’s light but deliberate Scottish lilt delivers them, it is one hell of a story.

The vocals of Fowlis, Polwart and Carpenter are all equally rich, each in its own way. Fowlis pure and high, Carpenter’s throaty low notes and Polwart with the sharpest edge – both vocally and in subject matter.

While the rest of the record never hits the same 1-2-3 punch of the opener, there is still plenty to recommend. A late favourite is Carpenter’s “Satellite” which is about some sort of space exploration device launched in ‘78. My poorly informed research suggests it could be the Pioneer Venus Multiprobe, the International Cometary Explorer, or some made up mission in the future where ’78 is short for 2078. My bet is on the International Cometary Explorer, but that’s not what’s important.

What is important is that deep space scientific probes aren’t the sort of thing that populate your average folk song. Not only does Carpenter sell you on the adventure, by the end she has you rooting hard for the damn thing like it’s a person.

Each of these artists has had a long career, and each clearly inspires the other two to make great music. The result is a fine bit of collaboration that not only has me happily returning to Mary Chapin Carpenter but also discovering two artists that it is my great shame to not have known sooner. I’m excited to explore further now that I’ve found the thread.

Best tracks: Gradh Geal Mo Chridhe, A Heart That Never Closes, Rebecca, Hold Everything, Satellite, Buidheann Mo Chridhe Clann Ualraig

CD Odyssey Disc 1642: Mary Chapin Carpenter

Happy Mother’s Day! That’s for the mothers reading the blog. Non-mothers, this is just another Sunday for you. If you are lucky enough to have a mother and you love her, give her a call and tell her so.

My crazy work schedule next week means I won’t have time to write another review for a while. With this in mind I got up early today and just sat and listened to this next record so I could review it now and thus, dear reader, provide you the content you most assuredly crave.

Here you go…

Disc 1642 is…The Dirt and the Stars

Artist: Mary Chapin Carpenter

Year of Release: 2020

What’s up with the Cover?  Giant Head Cover alert! This is more of a Giant Hair Cover, as Mary Chapin Carpenter has turned away from the camera. Perhaps she was laughing about something, or maybe she had to sneeze. This album did come out during COVID so turning away to sneeze would have been very important.

How I Came To Know It: I’ve been listening to Mary Chapin Carpenter for decades, and this was just me buying her new album and hoping it was a good one.

How It Stacks Up: I have nine of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s 16 albums (I only buy the ones I like). Of those nine, “The Dirt and the Stars” ranks at #9. Something had to be last.

Rating: 2 stars

Mary Chapin Carpenter has aged into her music a lot like Mark Knopfler, with each record feeling more and more laid back. On “The Dirt and the Stars” Carpenter is so chilled out you can imagine she sang the whole thing lying down.

At this stage of her career, Carpenter also shares something with Iron Maiden. Like them, she’s secure enough in her career that she makes her records as long and self-indulgent as she wishes, confident her fans will follow.

Which brings us to “The Dirt and the Stars,” which while only having 11 songs fills almost a full hour of music and seems in no hurry to resolve itself. Three songs clock in at around six minutes, and a fourth that goes north of seven. Unfortunately, in every case but one these songs would have benefited from a bit more judicious editing.

The worst of the bunch is “American Stooge” which tries to de-chill the album out midway through, with a bit of “Money for Nothing” style electric guitar. Unfortunately it never progresses musically and takes a long time not doing so. The piano noodling in the middle is particularly annoying.

Much better is Carpenter’s guitar work throughout. She takes on acoustic duties, and her light and relaxed plucking grounds the songs. My favourite song on the record is the opener, “Farther Along and Further In” which has that meandering songwriting quality that Carpenter does as well or better than anyone. Think of floating along a slow-moving river with a lot of bends, and no rapids. That’s “Farther Along and Further In”. I wish I could say the record had many others equally good but alas, it does not.

While the electric guitar is hit and miss, at the end of the record the title track partially redeems a lot of the previous decisions with a delightful and suitably restrained noodle. Think lesser version of the end of Dire Straits’ “Brothers in Arms” or Blue Rodeo’s “Five Days in May” and you’ll have an idea. It makes the song completely unsuitable for radio of course, but when did that ever matter on this blog? Never, my friends.

Even though she was well into her sixties when she recorded this album, Carpenter’s voice and tone are as beautiful as ever. She has a low alto that is smooth as silk, and likely the reason I bought this record despite the songs not being as compelling as some of her other work. Hearing Carpenter sing is good for the soul.

But then I realized that I had eight other albums where I can hear her sing, and I like all those records better. And with that revelation, I made the easy decision to part with this record and send it along to a home where it will get more love and playtime than I can offer.

Best tracks: Farther Along and Further In

CD Odyssey Disc 1233: Mary Chapin Carpenter

Here’s a fun fact. Last Thursday (Feb. 21) was this next artist’s birthday! Happy birthday, Mary Chapin Carpenter!

Disc 1233 is… Come On Come On

Artist: Mary Chapin Carpenter

Year of Release: 1992

What’s up with the Cover? The traditional Giant Head cover. Mary looks a little tight-lipped in this picture, not in a “I’m keeping secrets” kind of way but more of a “I’m not entirely comfortable with what is going on over there in stage left” kind of way.

How I Came To Know It: I was trying to find some common ground with a woman, because I was either in love or lust with her. At the time I thought it was the former but looking back it seems the latter is more likely.

Anyway, she liked Mary Chapin Carpenter, so I bought this album. You can read a full accounting of the whole sordid experience in my review of “State of the Heart” back at Disc 946. Spoiler alert: I did not get the girl.

How It Stacks Up:  I have eight Mary Chapin Carpenter albums. “Come On Come On” is pretty great, and I expected it to land in second place overall, but after a song by song comparison with “State of the Heart” I must drop it down to a respectful third. It was close though.

Ratings:  4 stars

“Come On Come On” completes the journey Carpenter began on “Shooting Straight in the Dark” (reviewed at Disc 378) from a traditional folk-country sound to a more contemporary folk-pop sound.

That previous foray felt awkwardly experimental at times, but on “Come On Come On” Carpenter shows she has now mastered the new sound. Country purists that were with her from the beginning may well have turned up their noses, but for the most part the album was widely embraced and become her biggest selling record of all time.

Much as I like to snob it up when it comes to music, I’m with the masses on this one. My two favourite records from Carpenter may have been her first, but “Come On Come On” is brilliant, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The opening track “The Hard Way” is a great example, with a production that feels like an ocean swell, full of a diffuse and powerful movement, but no sharp edges. Carpenter’s rich low Mezzo-Soprano vocals have always had a smoothness to them it fit well with her new vocal. “The Hard Way” even has a rock guitar solo in the bridge, and the trill of pop piano but the bones of the song – a great melody and Carpenter’s rich confident vocals – are as strong and compelling as ever.

“The Hard Way” is a song that celebrates life’s difficulty and while the theme of “you wouldn’t appreciate it if it were easy” is well-worn, it isn’t done much better than here.

The record is replete with positive energy, including two songs (“I Feel Lucky”, “I Take My Chances”) about embracing your own good fortune or – in the absence of certainty – rolling the dice and confidently hoping for the best. 1992 wasn’t an easy year for me, and I found the record’s optimism reassuring and inspirational.

Even on break-up songs like “He’ll Think He’ll Keep Her” are celebratory. The man might be in shock watching his wife walk out the door but for her this is a fresh start on a life deferred for too long. On “Only a Dream” an older brother leaves an abusive home, and while the song is about loss for the sister, for the brother it is about finding your own road and taking it.

Carpenter is a celebrated songwriter, and these songs are some of her best. Musically, she is equally adept at blues, country or swing depending on what the song calls for. Lyrically, she paints pictures with words that are sharp and specific, but speak to a river of emotion and experience that are universally relatable. “Only a Dream” ends with:

“The day you left home you got an early start

I watched your car back out in the dark

I opened the door to your room down the hall

I turned on the light and all that I saw

Was a bed and a desk and a couple of tacks

No sign of someone who expects to be back

It must’ve been one hell of a suitcase you packed.”

Writing 101: The specific is terrific.

Williams also does a couple of covers: Lucinda Williams’ “Passionate Kisses” and Dire Straits’ “The Bug.” At the time I had no idea either was a cover, and wouldn’t properly discover Lucinda Williams for another decade, but it shows that Carpenter has a great ear for a good song, whether it’s hers or someone else’s.  While I prefer the original in both cases, it is a testament to Carpenter’s talent that it wasn’t an easy choice.

The album ends with the title track, an understated, haunting song about looking back on life from middle-age, and acceptance about all the choices that got you to…here. The chorus is a mix of sweetness and whispered comfort. Many’s the time I put this on and lay down in the dark to take comfort in a lullaby founded in the reassurance of experience and acceptance.

25 years and hundreds of listens later this album still works its soothing magic on me, giving me peace with the past and optimism for whatever comes next.

Best tracks: The Hard Way, Only a Dream, I Am a Town, Walking Through Fire, Come On Come On

CD Odyssey Disc 994: Mary Chapin Carpenter

Greetings, gentle readers! The long weekend has finally come and it is most welcome indeed. I am feeling a little worn out and a few days off is just the thing I need. Let’s start it off with a music review!

Disc 994 is…The Calling

Artist: Mary Chapin Carpenter

Year of Release: 2007

What’s up with the Cover? Mary Chapin Carpenter, looking contemplative. For some reason this pose reminds of a knight standing at ease, his sword resting easy. Carpenter’s sword is a guitar, of course.

How I Came To Know It: I told the story back at Disc 946 of how I first was introduced to Carpenter, so you can read that tragic tale of unrequited love there. “The Calling” it was a trio of later albums I bought while exploring her more recent work.

How It Stacks Up:  Of my eight Mary Chapin Carpenter albums, “The Calling” falls last. However there is no shame in that; Carpenter has 14 studio albums, so “The Calling” is ahead of six others I decided not to buy at all.

Ratings: 2 stars

I’m generally a glass half full kind of guy. I say this so that you’ll know I feel conflicted when I say that “The Calling” is just a bit too upbeat and positive. There isn’t enough of that in the world, but here all the love, understanding and grace comes off a bit boring.

“The Calling” feels a little bit like that advice you get from that sweet old lady on your block when you’re a kid. The one with all the trite sayings like “things will all work out if you let them” and “everything happens for a reason,” usually delivered as she bent over you with her hands primly on the tops of her knees. That lady is nice enough, but even as a kid I knew that shit was some bad advice.

Songs like “Twilight” are supposed to be pastorals about the beauty of certain times of the day, but for me it felt like that aforementioned lady talking blandly about the weather (the favourite topic of people like that, when not giving unhelpful advice).

It doesn’t help that “The Calling” takes a lot of what makes Carpenter’s music so wonderful -  lilting, subtle melodies that grow gently into wistful stories about overcoming adversity – and strip out the hard edges that make those stories compelling.

The production, lush with guitar and piano is muted and soft, like the songs themselves seeming unwilling to offend. They aren’t afraid, they’re just content to deliver their messages in a nice easy flow. I wanted the waters to have a little more chop, to remind me I was on a journey. There are still songs about heartache and loss. “Closer and Closer Apart” is about an approaching breakup and “It Must Have Happened” hints at tough times in the narrator’s past. However, they didn’t pluck my heartstrings like they should have.

Despite this, Carpenter’s low, rich vocal performance is beautiful, and I found that I enjoyed hearing her sing even when the songs weren’t inspiring me. And I like that an artist can feel inspired about the human spirit overcoming and looking to the horizon with a healthy and hopeful attitude. I just wanted the obstacles to be better defined, so I’d enjoy Carpenter maneuvering her way around them more.

So I’ll be selling this record, right? Wrong. Because there are a couple song that when I heard it I knew I had to have it.

“On With the Song” takes all that positive energy and focuses it like a knife on all the haters and prejudiced jerks that wrap themselves in the flag and smugly think they are the better for it. Carpenter calls out all those country music artists that take that jingoism and make commercially successful songs that feed those prejudices:

“This isn’t for the ones who blindly follow

Jingoistic bumper stickers telling you

To love it or leave it, and you’d better love Jesus

And get out of the way of the red, white and blue.”

Take that, Toby Keith. This song reminded me of John Prine singing “Your flag decal won’t get you into heaven anymore” but lest you think Carpenter is singling out America or Christians, she’s not. As anyone knows, America and Christianity are both full of wonderful, caring people. Carpenter’s target is intolerance.

She also acknowledges that haters are gonna hate and maybe even profit it from it, but that she won’t sit quietly while it happens. She ends the song with:

“This isn’t for you and you know who you are

So do what you want ‘cuz I know that you can

But I’ve got to be true to myself and to you

So on with the song, I don’t give a damn.”

By the end of the record, Carpenter starts to give a more compelling voice to her optimism. On “Why Shouldn’t We” she invokes the names of God, Buddha and Allah as inspiration that the world can be better place. As she notes:

“We believe in things

We’re told that we cannot change

Why shouldn’t we

We had heroes once, and we will again

Why shouldn’t we.”

“Why Shouldn’t We” is full of inspirational piano licks that made my heart swell with hope that humanity is going to be alright after all. By the end of this record, Carpenter’s optimism wore me down and gave me a little appreciation for all that schmaltz at the beginning. Or put another way, that friendly lady down the street when you were a kid probably had her fair share of heartache too. But she put that aside so she could deliver a little comfort to some neighbourhood kids. And why shouldn’t she?

So while this album misses the mark a lot, it did enough to convince me to keep it. My cup doesn’t runneth over, but it’s half full.

Best tracks: The Calling, On With the Song, Why Shouldn’t We

CD Odyssey Disc 946: Mary Chapin Carpenter

Last night on the walk home from the pub my compatriots and I all agreed to go boldly into London Drugs and buy a CD with little forethought. Everyone else welched, but I am now the proud owner of Meatloaf’s “Bat Out of Hell” for the low price of $5. Not sure if I won or lost. I guess I’ll decide when I review it.

A definite win was getting four Harpeth Rising albums direct from the band, who kindly shipped it to me from their home base in Indiana. Harpeth Rising is one of the finer contemporary folk acts out there – check them out here.

Now, with the Dolphins game safely on pause I offer you up a little country…

Disc 946 is….State of the Heart

Artist: Mary Chapin Carpenter

Year of Release: 1989

What’s up with the Cover? Mary Chapin Carpenter confronts a version of herself from an alternate universe. In that universe, Carpenter is a tough-as-nails police detective with a penchant for bad boys and the blues.

No, wait…sorry, I was temporarily thrown off by Carpenter’s unexpected eighties rocker girl haircut. This is just her looking in a mirror.

How I Came To Know It: I’ve reviewed three Mary Chapin Carpenter albums already and each time can’t remember how I got to know her. Sure my buddy Norm liked her, but that wasn’t the birth of it all; I already had one album when he mentioned her.

“State of the Heart” was the first record of hers I hever got, and finally jogged my memory. Back in university I was chasing after this girl (as one does at that age). She was friends with my buddy girlfriend at the time, and was a Ph.D. student in something or other (I can’t remember what). I was smitten with her and she was smitten with Mary Chapin Carpenter (particularly the early ‘folk’ years – she was a hipster before her time). I decided to check out Mary Chapin Carpenter so we’d have something in common (being a lowly undergraduate, I was having a hard time impressing her with my usual mix of manic banter and quotes from Tennyson).

So I got into about Mary Chapin Carpenter and tried to talk to her about that – which is when I learned it wasn’t the subject matter that was at issue, but rather the source. Turns out she was more interested in talking with another guy in our circle who was taller, better looking and - against all odds - had better hair. Ah well, at least Mary Chapin Carpenter worked out.

How It Stacks Up:  I’ve gone on a bit of a Mary Chapin Carpenter binge in the past year and now have eight of her albums (last time I reviewed one I only had 5). Of the eight I now have, “State of the Heart” is pretty awesome. I’ll put it second.

Ratings: 4 stars

Mary Chapin Carpenter has always straddled the worlds of folk, rock and country and “State of the Heart” is a fine example of her skill at walking in all worlds and mastering each.

Sadly, the Soulless Record Execs convinced her (or she decided) to start the record with the most Nashville country of the lot with “How Do” a playful and flirty song which is good, but not what makes Carpenter great.

Fortunately the rest of this record is exactly what makes Carpenter great; strong songwriting, sparse production (particularly for 1989), and a low sweet tone that draws you into the stories of ordinary people making their way in the world.

The album’s second track, “Something of a Dreamer” has all of that and more, a poignant song about a woman picking men that are no good for her because, well, she dreams it could be better. The guitar work on this song is relaxed and easy, and the flourishes of violin are tasteful and restrained. Carpenter’s vocals climb high up into her range and never lose their power.

It is this folksy side of Carpenter that has always appealed to me first, with songs that have strong and evocative lyrics that drew me in when I was young and impressionable and still draw me in now. On “This Shirt” Carpenter shares vignettes of her life through the recurring presence of a favourite shirt. I’ve heard these lines:

“This shirt was the place your cat

Decided to give birth to five

And we stayed up all night watching

And we cried when the last one died.”

Countless times, but they still had me welling up thinking of all the cats I’ve said goodbye to over the years.

And while these folks songs hit me the hardest, the up tempo country side of the record is also great “How Do” is a lesser track, and even it is still OK. Better still is “Too Tired” a song about acquiescing to an ill-advised booty call. The song has that fifties rock swing that is all too common in mainstream country. Despite this, Carpenter makes it work, with clever lyrics and a melody that takes the tired Nashville formula and twists it just enough to make it interesting again.

“Slow Country Dance” is a waltz about an aging beauty still trying to find love, lost in the moment of the dance, and “Quittin’ Time” a pop song which somehow makes the regret of a collapsing love soar with conviction. Genres are an afterthought, as Carpenter masters each with ease.

The songwriting on “State of the Heart” is some of the best you will ever find, and the range Carpenter shows (both vocally and stylistically) is impressive. This is a record I’ve heard a hundred times and every time I play it I enjoy it as much as the first time.

Best tracks: Something of a Dreamer, This Shirt, Quittin’ Time, Down in Mary’s Land, Too Tired, Slow Country Dance

CD Odyssey Disc 378: Mary Chapin Carpenter

I didn't know this next album particularly well, so even though I finished giving it the requisite 'start-to-finish' listen yesterday, I kept it in the car and MP3 player and gave it a full four listens.

Disc 378 is...Shooting Straight in the Dark

Artist: Mary Chapin Carpenter

Year of Release: 1990

What’s Up With The Cover?: An out of focus head shot. Why, MCC, why do that? Anyway, I'm not a fan of this cover, which looks like so many folksy women singers of this time, right down to the script-like font.

How I Came To Know It: I've known Mary Chapin Carpenter for a long time, but this particular album was a favourite in the day of my friend Norm. I was into 1992's "Come On Come On" but he really liked "Shooting Straight in the Dark." Although I considered buying it for many years, I only did so a couple years ago.

How It Stacks Up: I have five Mary Chapin Carpenter albums, and I like them all in their own way. This isn't the best though, and I'll put it 4th out of 5, just ahead of "Stones In the Road."

Rating: I struggled with this one, waffling between 2 and 3 stars but going back and checking my last few reviews in each category (hint: you can do that in the sidebar) I'm going to go with 3.

"Shooting Straight in the Dark" is a sweet album, in the best possible sense something can be sweet. Not saccharine. Not 'dear' or 'precious,' but sweet - like a tall glass of lemonade on a hot summer day; welcome, and comforting. Hardly overwhelming, but that's not what you want in a glass of lemonade.

It starts with her voice, which is smooth and full, with lots of power in the lower register. I have no doubt she could belt it out with the vacant banshees of American Idol , but Mary Chapin Carpenter knows better. She reins it in, and let good phrasing and honest delivery slip into the cracks between the notes.

She's also sweet in her arrangements. "Shooting Straight in the Dark" is her third album, and fits nicely in the middle of the five I own. It is a little bit more contemporary sounding, as she moves toward the sound that would make "Come On Come On" such a huge record, but there are plenty of her more early country sounding songs. The transition of sounds doesn't always work, but it works enough to deliver a good record.

Fittingly, I was attracted to "Middle Ground" which has a little bit of both sounds in one. It is a song about starting over at the age of 33 (which is about how old she was when she made this record). Listening to this song reminded me of the similarly themed Aimee Mann's "31 Today" and more generally of that momentary panic you experience when you hit your early thirties and start to wonder if you're doing what you're supposed to be doing. Been there, done that. If you're there now don't worry; it'll sort itself out.

I also enjoyed the southern guitar picking and fiddle on "Halley Came To Jackson" which reminded me of Michelle Shocked's great record, "Arkansas Traveller." Carpenter sings of the 1910 and 1986 visits of Halley's Comet, first as a father with his infant daughter, and then the same daughter grown old and watching for the second time, but experiencing it for the first. It is both playful and nostalgic at the same time, a warm hug across 75 years.

Sweet can be sad too, and this record has its share of sad and broken relationships, including "What You Didn't Say" and the record's best song, "When She's Gone," a two part tale of a woman leaving, and then a man looking back after she's gone. The song's final lines show you don't need a lot of fancy language to convey a lot of heartache:

"She didn't beg and you didn't plead
She knew exactly when to leave
The way she knew as you kissed her
When she's gone you won't miss her."

For all this well-deserved praise, this record's quality is a bit uneven. This is particularly true when Carpenter picks up the tempo and goes for a more rockabilly feel, like on "Right Now" which is supposed to be a booty-call song, but falls flat. I found it kind of embarassing, like when the shy girl pretends to be otherwise to get the popular boy's attention. Booty call music is more the realm of Lucinda Williams; Mary Chapin Carpenter is just too...well, you know.

The first two songs ("Going Out Tonight", "Right Now") are the weakest on the album, which is not only weird, but sets a bad tone for the record. She recovers nicely through the middle tracks, but it felt like she was trying to be commercial at the front end, and it gets in the way of her brilliance.

Overall, "Shooting Straight in the Dark" is a good record, and an enjoyable listen, but it feels a little less grounded than the record before it (1989's "State of the Heart") and not fully matured into the classic that followed it (1992's "Come On Come On").

That said, as Carpenter points out on "The More Things Change":

"I'm the same sweet girl you couldn't get enough of
Way back when you pledged your love."

So true, and for all my minor quibbles, I enjoyed this tall glass of lemonade.

Best tracks: When She's Gone, Middle Ground, Can't Take Love For Granted, Halley Came To Jackson

CD Odyssey Disc 246: Mary Chapin Carpenter

Not much is going to measure up against Dire Straits' "Making Movies" but my next album still represented itself well. We return now, to country folk crossover.

Disc 246 is...Hometown Girl
Artist: Mary Chapin Carpenter

Year of Release: 1987

What’s Up With The Cover?: A photo of Mary Chapin Carpenter that looks like it was taken from her agent's portfolio, superimposed on top of a picture of an old farmstead. I'm sure this is supposed to evoke the 'hometown girl' feeling, but it skates dangerously into 'bad folk album photography' territory.

How I Came To Know It: As I noted when I reviewed "Stones In the Road" way back at Disc 44, I can't perfectly remember, but I think it was a music video off of her 4th studio album, "Come On Come On". That was the first album I bought, but "Hometown Girl" was second, I think partly because it was in the sale rack. Fools!

How It Stacks Up: I have four Mary Chapin Carpenter albums (4 of her first 5 in fact). Of the four, I'd have to put "Hometown Girl" at the top of the list. It doesn't have the slick production values of later records, but it more than compensates with superior songwriting.

Rating: 4 stars.

"Hometown Girl" is one of those many albums that never had the commercial success it deserved. Carpenter would go on to make a modest string of hits, but her first album never even charted. Again, I declare - more emphatically this time - fools!

So many quietly beautiful songs populate this record, it is hard to know where to start. It is a record - not unlike Rilo Kiley's "Takeoffs and Landings" that captures the mixture of exhileration and regret that we feel in early adulthood as we leave to pursue our dreams. In Carpenter's case, this is brought into focus through songs that look back on her own youth, and the choices she has made to pursue music. As she sings in the title track, "Hometown Girl"

"I knew girls when I was sixteen
Could make a smart boy stutter, turn a nice boy mean
And the boys turned the girls into homecoming queens
And married each other instead of their dreams."

She contrasts this life she avoided with her own current experience in the chorus that follows:

"These days I'm mostly out on my own
Looking for someplace that I can call home
Late at night or just before dawn
I pretend your with me now
It never seemed so hard before
What happened to that hometown girl?"

Other songs, capture the ephemeral nature of fame. Already off and running with a record deal, Carpenter pays homage to her fellow musicians that weren't so fortunate in "A Lot Like Me":

"Well he played a lot of places where the only wages were food and beer for free
No fancy licks but he had a gift, the kind of songs he'd sing
But you do what you can to be a satisfied man just to have your piece of mind
So he gave it all up for a government job where the paycheques come on time."

And underscoring the point, Carpenter notes that at the end of her set, she gets her old friend up on stage, and the results remind us that the line between fame and obscurity in music is razor thin, and often arbitrary:

"When I get him up, at closing time
A couple of songs and a chance to shine
As the star that he longed to be
He looked a hell of a lot like me."

This theme also closes the album, on "Heroes and Heroines", which is one of my favourite folk songs over the years. It is a song that bemoans that with each great and brave discovery, there is one less uncharted frontier. While paying homage to those heroes of our past, Carpenter ends with a comparison to those people still willing to strike out anyway:

"Lord help the fool who said,
'better quit while you're ahead'
A dreamer born is a hero bred"

There are so many other great songs on this record - including a remake of Tom Waits' "Downtown Train" which is very good (and a damned sight better than the Rod Stewart monstrosity). Carpenter sings beautifully throughout, and Steve Buckingham's guitar playing is skilled albeit respectfully in the background.

"Hometown Girl" does suffer slightly in terms of range, where the songs are generally introspective and quiet, making it hard to find auditory landmarks on your first few listens, but it is also what makes doing so that much more worth the effort.

Each of the tastefully restrained 10 songs on "Hometown Girl" not only tells a story, within that story it shows us a facet of life in a new light. That the production values are subpar just makes it a diamond that's a little rough around the edges, but polishes up beautifully.

Best tracks: A Lot Like Me, Other Streets and Other Towns, Hometown Girl, A Road Is Just A Road, Just Because, Heroes and Heroines

CD Odyssey Disc 44: Mary Chapin Carpenter

After a chosen disc, the dice gods return to pre-eminence with another blast from my folk/country phase of the early nineties (I am realizing there are a lot of these).

Disc 44 is...Stones In The Road

Artist: Mary Chapin Carpenter

Year of Release: 1994

How I Came To Know It: I can't remember how I came to know Mary Chapin Carpenter. My friend Norm liked one of her albums, but ironically, it was one of the last ones I bought. I think I heard music off of "Come On Come On" on country TV and took a flier. This album was just me drilling through the collection.

How It Stacks Up: I don't have everything by Mary Chapin Carpenter - and this album is when I stopped buying everything. I have four of her albums, and I'd put this one 4th.

Rating: 2 stars with a thumbs up.

Mary Chapin Carpenter is a crossover artist between folk and country.

Back in the nineties I met this girl through mutual friends. I really wanted to date her, and she wanted nothing to do with me - but that isn't what this story is about (mercifully). She told me that in her early career, Carpenter was a pure folk artist in Virginia, but she commercialized and went into the country genre more heavily. I was fascinated with finding that early stuff, but never did back then, and now the fervour has left me (like my desire for the girl). Maybe another time - for the music that is.

Anyway, this particular album is a further progression for her into country. Her great songwriting, and smooth, full voice are still present, but the album is just a little too produced over all. Also, it has that annoying Bruce Hornsby-sounding piano on there. I'd like her to dress it down a little so the songs could shine a little more on their own. That's not possible though - I guess that's the way it is. Some things never change.

That said, there are good tracks on here, and an album that evokes a consistent emotion of lost youth, and coming to grips with maturity. While it is not as consistently good as her other work, and it has the early infection of "new country" it is still worth a listen. Just don't start with this one - if you start early, you'll hear her early sound in this album, but otherwise it might slip you by.

Best tracks: Why Walk When You Can Fly, A Keeper For Every Flame, The Last Word, The End of My Pirate Days, Jubilee