Mandy Barnett Has No Tears in Her
Beer
Three years ago, when she was just twenty
years old, Mandy Barnett was prepared to
shake the foundations of country music with
the release of her self-titled debut album. With
a powerful voice of stunning intensity and
precision that seemed to be channeling both
Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn, Mandy was
declared the Next Big Thing in country music.
But before the first clap could hit, her thunder
was immediately calmed by the Next Bigger
Thing, the thirteen-year-old LeAnn Rimes. Now
she's back, and this time Barnett's a force to
be reckoned with. With a legendary producer
on board and a remarkable, nostalgic wonder
of an album, I've Got a Right to Cry, Mandy
proves she doesn't care what Nashville thinks.
Reintroducing the singer to Nashville is the
late, great Owen Bradley, legendary producer
of Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn. Widely
credited for the growth of the Nashville sound,
Owen helped to shape Mandy's career,
grounding her in the traditional golden days
and ways of country's past. With Owen's
brother, Harold, and nephew, Bobby, Mandy
consulted notes left behind by Owen to finish
the album. And now, with the surefire backing
power of nine elderly gents that sound like the
Grand Ole Opry incarnate but look like
Lawrence Welk's orchestra, the
cigarette-smoking, beer-swilling,
twenty-three-year-old beauty is heralding a
return to country music's good old days and
ready to give Nashville a good slap upside the
head.
Your songs definitely conjure up an era
when the likes of Hank Williams and Patsy
Cline dominated the country music circuit.
Who inspires you musically?
I've had several musical influences. I started
out in, being from the south with southern
gospel music, singing in the church, and a lot
of the singing groups from the fifties, like the
Blackwood Brothers and the Stamps and
different groups like that. Then, later on, I got
into Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves, Brenda Lee, and
Wilma Burgess. To put it in a nutshell, the
Nashville sound has been one of the biggest
influences on my life and on my music, and
not just Patsy Cline. When I say the Nashville
sound, I mean from Patsy Cline to Ernest
Tubb to Conway Twitty. The thing about the
Nashville sound is it's a perfect blend of pop
standards and country. So I listened a lot to
Ella Fitzgerald and that kind of thing. And
some swing.
You make a striking image fronting a
gang of older musicians. What's your
all-male band like?
They're great! They're the nicest guys I've ever
known. And there's some of them I've worked
with for years and years. There's one guy in
the band, Jason Bells. We played shows
together when we were about nine and ten
years old. Incredible banjo player, incredible
rhythm player. And Harold Bradley, who
co-produced the record with me, and
[drummer] Buddy Harman [Cline, Johnny
Cash, Roger Miller] ... They're two living
legends.
Owen Bradley was responsible for some
of country's biggest hits. How did he help
shape your music?
The thing that was just so inspiring about
Owen was that he just picked such great
songs, and he just really knew how to get
inside of you and pick the right kind of songs
for you and the right kind of arrangement. He
was all in it to make you sound like you're
supposed to sound, to find the perfect sound
for you.
What is the most important thing you
learned from him?
Always to do great songs no matter what
people are doing, no matter what trends there
are, no matter what gimmicks people have.
Always do quality music.
How do you pick songs that you want to
sing? Before Owen helped, but does the
label select the songs now?
No, I usually pick most of the songs and when
we were doing the record, I brought a lot of
songs to the table. I always had a good ear for
what I can sing -- it's just finding it. I've gone
down to the archives at the Country Music Hall
of Fame, and I've gone to record stores, and
I've gone to publishing companies and looked
at their older catalogs. Because, in Nashville,
really what I'm doing isn't exactly what's
popular right now, so the writers aren't writing
a slew of songs that sound like "I've Got a
Right to Cry." I have to go back a little bit. I try
not to find songs that have been cut to death,
songs that are so obvious. I try to find songs
that ... well, there are some of those album
cuts that really didn't maybe have a chance, or
if they were hits, it was years and years ago,
and they haven't been heard from since.
You played the role of Patsy Cline for over
two years in the musical tribute Always ...
Patsy Cline. Are the comparisons to her
getting burdensome?
No. I think that when people tell me that I
sound similar to Patsy Cline that they can tell
that I've been influenced by her, and it's true --
I have been influenced by her tremendously,
but I'm not a Patsy Cline imitator. I'm pretty
much just
