February 7, 1999
Tricia Yearwood and Alan Jackson:
Country Twang With an Edge
By JAMES HUNTER
Until recently, country music has happily honored tradition, making
do with only slight stylistic adjustments. With hummable barroom
melodies, in fairly simple arrangements, country songs usually
concerned themselves with cheating, drinking or loyalty. But these days,
all bets are off.
In the early 1990s, Garth Brooks arrived on the scene, bristling with the
energy of the 70s rock on which he grew up, while at the same time
acknowledging his indebtedness to the country stalwarts George Jones
and George Strait.
No one ever mistook him for anything but a country boy. Then along
came Shania Twain. She guessed correctly that the country audience
was more than ready for pop sophistication. Her music resonated with
the rhythms of contemporary dance pop, and she made videos that were
as slick as anyone else's on MTV. As a result, listeners could hear one of
her pop ballads or dance tunes with twangs and reasonably wonder,
"This is country?"
It's a concern that has been heard since the 1960s, when the producer
and arranger Owen Bradley recorded Patsy Cline singing in front of
orchestras. Purists were no less dumbfounded by Cline's music than
they are by that of many of today's country artists.
But the country boom of the early 90s has leveled off, and now, to
regain the momentum, country has to figure out -- again -- what it is.
Recent albums by Trisha Yearwood and Alan Jackson point in a
promising direction. The two singers grew up within 100 miles of each
other in Georgia, and their careers have spanned the ups and downs of
country this decade. Perhaps that's why Ms. Yearwood's "Where Your
Road Leads" (MCA 70023) and Jackson's "High Mileage" (Arista
07822-18864-Z) sidestep the confusion.
They rely on an almost classical sense of country form that still leaves
room for innovation. And the tack has proved successful: Ms.
Yearwood's album has sold nearly a million copies and Jackson's twice
that since they were released late last fall.
Ms. Yearwood, named the Country Music Association's female vocalist
of the year for the last two years, has always craved adventurousness in
her music as much as Ms. Twain has in hers. On "Never Let You Go
Again" and "Love Wouldn't Lie to Me," Ms. Yearwood sings these
ballads in her lush yet minimally ornamented style.
They might be taken for pop, given arrangements that mix two staples
of country -- mandolins and steel guitars -- with dreamy synthesizer
lines and piano accents that could have come from London pop
sessions.
"Baby, I'm just heart and soul and flesh and bone," Ms. Yearwood
confesses on "Wouldn't Any Woman," an uptempo country-rocker.
Throughout her career, Ms. Yearwood, 34, has demonstrated a marked
contrast in her music: straight-out gutsiness on one hand and a
sophisticated technique on the other.
On "Where Your Road Leads," she balances immediacy and refinement.
She has eliminated much of the regionalism that characterized earlier
country, paving the way for the fast-paced styles of today's
pop-conscious female country artists like Ms. Twain, Faith Hill and the
Dixie Chicks.
Yet no one would confuse Ms. Yearwood's singing with Celine Dion's.
Ms. Yearwood's unswerving concentration on words and melodies
communicates an intensity that might only be called country. Invariably,
she builds intricate moods of romantic regret and disappointment that
reflect country singers' tradition of a nearly religious communion with
their material. While she manages to pay respects to the past, her singing
is never a slave to it.
"There Goes My Baby," which opens the album, may have a 60s pop
drift to its melody, but Ms. Yearwood delivers the song with a clean,
up-to-the-minute terseness. Nowhere in Ms. Yearwood's album is this
balance better showcased than on a song called "Bring Me All Your
Loving," a finely wrought ballad that keeps turning into a rock-blues belt.
"There's nothing at the five and dime that I really need," Ms. Yearwood
sings, finally advising the man in the song to "throw your present in the
creek."
On "High Mileage," Jackson, 40, hews more closely to country
convention than Ms. Yearwood does. For him, a large part of country's
appeal involves its canny accumulation of catchy melodies and rhythms
to convey plain emotions. Like most male country singers, he yearns for
another country verity, stability, although for Jackson the present is
equally hard to ignore.
On the album's first track, a swinging stroll entitled "Right on the
Money," he strikes an entertaining balance between old and new, likening
a woman to "my favorite song on a new set of speakers."
A country minimalist, Jackson prefers spare acoustic guitar to the studio
bluster of much of contemporary country and pop. His stripped-down
approach allows him to arrive at the emotional core of his romantic
strivings. In an outstanding ballad like "Gone Crazy" or the