If you're anything like me you're a largely miserable bastard that no one on the street dare approach unless they're looking to feel better about themselves so it takes something stupendous to unfold the creases in my jowls. Say, something like "The Woodshed Album" by Nashville-based chanteuse Nita Velo.
Indeed, it is albums of this sort that give folk music a good name. "Nothin' Left to Lose" is an enjoyable folk song in the Katy Moffat vein, while "A Mother and a Child" is a truly sorrowful tale. The themes you'd come to expect on any album with a country feel - sorrow, loss, alcohol - are all present. It's just that Nita delivers her stories and songs with more conviction and precision than those around her.
"The Bartender Song" is a tender, loving song that serves as an adequate summation of the relationship that we all should have with the one that pours our drinks. Later on, we hear more of the warm, loving Nita that shone bright in the album's infancy. "Home Is Here With You" is painfully sweet, and a fine precursor to "Old Rugged Cross", which draws the album to a close beautifully.
You get the feeling from this album that Nita Velo is a sweet and caring woman - if she likes you, that is. What Nita offers here is an album rich in thought and emotion. Exactly what you want from a folk album.
Available by worldwide mail order from CD Baby.