By Eleni P. Austin
A little more than 20 years ago, Sugar Hill Records issued Just Because I’m A Woman: The Songs Of Dolly Parton, a tribute collection featured a distaff coterie of artists that included heavy-hitters like Melissa Etheridge, Emmylou Harris, Shania Twain, Norah Jones, Sinead O’ Connor and Alison Krauss. But it was a relative newcomer who stood out from the pack. Mindy Smith’s stunning version of “Jolene” not only won praise from Dolly herself but created enough buzz in the music industry to get her signed to the venerable Vanguard Records. Although she seemed like an overnight success, her triumph had been a long time coming.
Born in 1972, Melinda Lee Smith was adopted by a non-denominational Protestant minister and his wife, who was the choir director at their church. She grew up on Long Island, New York. As a kid her parents encouraged her musical talent. Sadly, her mother lost her battle with cancer when Mindy was in her late teens. She attended a few different colleges but wound up joining her dad after he relocated to Knoxville, Tennessee in 1994.
It was in Knoxville where she began exploring acoustic-based artists like Alison Krauss, Shawn Colvin and The Cox Family. As she soaked up the sounds of Country, Bluegrass and Americana, she picked up a guitar and taught herself to play. Soon enough, she began writing her own songs. In 1998, with only $300.00 to her name, she moved to Nashville, intent on a career in music. She initially experienced such stage-fright, that rather than play her guitar, she would just hold it and sing acapella.
Her talent quickly shone through, and Music City took notice. After winning a Tin Pan South Open Mic competition, she was a finalist in the Kerrville Folk Festival’s New Folk Competition. That netted her a publishing deal with Big Yellow Dog Music. Her big break came when she appeared on the Dolly tribute. That same year she signed with Vanguard and recorded her debut album, One Moment More. It was released in 2004 to rave reviews. Her first single, “Come To Jesus,” simultaneously raced up the Country, Contemporary Christian and Triple A (Adult Album Alternative) charts.
Over the next decade, she released four more records, Long Island Shores, a Christmas collection, Stupid Love and a self-titled effort. In 2014, she became acquainted with her birth family and It turned out several family members were musically inclined. Although her adoptive mom, Sharron (who studied at Julliard), was her biggest musical inspiration, she was happy to learn her love of music was actually hereditary. Now, she’s returned with her first album in 12 years, Quiet Town.
The opening three songs set the stage for a deeply satisfying record. The title-track is up first, sun-kissed guitars wrap around tentative piano notes, spidery bass and a tip-toe beat. Rueful lyrics like “They’re moving in with concrete and stone, and those gray skyline homes, remember when we lived in a quiet town? When the stars still shined brighter than the city lights there and the crickets still sang after sundown,” don’t necessarily bemoan progress as much yearn for simpler times. Painterly piano takes charge on the break just before the final verse counts a few blessings: “Yeah, me and you, we’re a fortunate few, lucky to have that at all to lose, but I’m willing to bet we’re not the only ones left to miss a quiet town.”
“Jacob’s Ladder” is equally pastoral as piano and whirring organ, shimmery Wurlitzer, strummy guitars fall in line with nimble bass figures and a kick-drum beat. Trenchant lyrics take a sideways swipe at organized religion, quietly denouncing the judgement and hypocrisy: “Why don’t they tell ya how to be happy, when they tell ya how to be? Or why what works for them has got to work for me?/They try to make it all look so easy, like they have some Midas touch, but it’s just gold-plated things and cover-ups.” Even as she ponders the connection between heaven and earth, she quickly discerns “The only guarantee you get, is there’s no guarantees.”
The brisk “Every Once And A While” speaks to the tiny perfidies we tell ourselves to get through the day. Willowy pedal steel partners with Honky-Tonk piano, rustic guitars, flinty organ, thrumming bass and a thunking beat. The buoyant melody and arrangement nearly camouflages Mindy’s downcast mien as she catalogues her coping mechanisms: “I try to paint a pretty face on an ugly truth, I don’t believe a word of it, yeah but that’s just what I do, yeah, I lie to myself every once and a while/Don’t wanna miss you, don’t wanna be over it, don’t want the memories, but I don’t want to forget, play it cool, heartbreak with style, fight the tears back with a smile.”
Mindy’s sound had never been easily categorized, and that remains true for this album. Here, she effortlessly hopscotches through a surfeit of styles. Take the Gospel-flavored lament of “Farther Than We Should Have,” which finds a measure of grace amidst life’s seemingly insurmountable challenges. Then there’s keening cri du Coeur of “Peace Eludes Me,” which sets out on a quest for serenity. The piano-driven “I’d Rather Be A Bridge” splits the difference between Christmas-y chords and ‘70s Singer-Songwriter reflection. Astute lyrics appeal to, as Abe Lincoln referred to as “the better angels of our nature.” Finally, there’s the grit and a twang of the cheerful carpe diem, “Something To Write In Stone.”
The best songs here weave an irresistible tapestry of sunshine and melancholy. “Hour Of My Departure” matches lonesome pedal steel, shivery organ, vroom-y bass, acoustic and electric guitars to a chugging backbeat. A wistful farewell, it’s shot-through with kindness: “In the hour of my departure, don’t you cry, don’t you cry, my love, I’ll never be farther than by your side, by your side/so darling, don’t you cry cause there’s a melody playing in the slightest breeze, and we will always be, we will always be one.” Quicksilver pedal steel darts between lush ‘la-la-la’s” and plangent guitar on the break.
Both “Light Of Mine” and “Jericho” hint at spirituality without feeling preachy or didactic. The former drafts off “This Little Light Of Mine,” which has been part of the Black Gospel lexicon for close to 100 years. A woozy bit of Twist & Shout, it’s anchored by slippery guitars, loose-limbed bass, thumping keys and a shuffle-rhythm. Lyrics offer up recalibrated expectations: “I’ve lived too long to live this life afraid, and prayed enough to know that I can’t pray some things away, and it’s okay, cause this little light of mine shines from within, brighter than the sun and stronger than the wind, dark days and long nights, they’ve got nothin’ when this little light of mine, it shines from within.” Swoony slide guitar do-si-dos through the break, charting a course of perseverance.
Meanwhile, the latter is the record’s most tough-minded track. Steely guitar riffs, that share some musical DNA with Gustavo Santaolalla’s spectral song “Iguazu,” ride roughshod over tensile bass, whispering keys and a cantering beat. The melody and arrangement echo the Steve Earle classic, “Copperhead Road,” but the lyrics conflate Biblical touchstones and American milestones: “I’m going down to Jericho, old time Gospel on the radio, bones and signs on the desert road shoulder, raising up hell like a holy roller, rolling down to Jericho/Jordan River or the Rio Grande, Pilgrims searching for the Promised Land, the horizon shimmers like a fever dream, Red-Tailed Hawks and angels wings, we’re all going down to Jericho.” Over prickly guitars and pliant piano, a lone flugelhorn is tasked with blowing down the walls.
The album closes with “I Always Will.” Feathery piano lattices plucky guitars, swooping pedal steel and plaintive flugelhorn, cocooning Mindy’s winsome croon. The lyrics offer solace and grace: “When the stars steal the sky up over the hill and the moon rests gently on your windowsill, know I love you still, oooh, and I always will.” It’s a tender benediction, from a great record.
Dovetailing with the seasonal equinox, Quiet Town, is suffused with an autumnal ache that simply hits the spot. A decade between records, and Mindy Smith doesn’t miss a step.
