'The Balladeer' Review: Lori McKenna's Americana-infused LP is a celebration of her close bond with family
Lori McKenna, the Grammy award-winning Americana songstress, will be releasing her highly-anticipated album ‘The Balladeer’ this weekend. The new record, which will be released on Friday, July 24 via CN Records/Thirty Tigers, is a celebration of the people whom the talented storyteller holds especially close to her heart. With this intimate collection of songs, McKenna weaves a vivid tapestry of stories drawn on experiences with her close-knit family, while using traditional Americana arrangements that are both sublime and cinematic.
The Grammy award-winning producer Dave Cobb (also a featured guitarist), helped produce the album with McKenna, who penned most of the songs at Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A. Notably, three of the tracks on 'The Balladeer' were co-written with McKenna's fellow Love Junkies mates, Hillary Lindsey and Liz Rose. Rounding off the incredible talent on display, we have Brian Allen (bass, cello, upright bass), Chris Powell (drums, percussion), Philip Towns (piano, Wurlitzer, Mellotron, harmonium), besides numerous other contributions in the vocal department, which are mentioned in the breakdown below.
Talking about the writing process for ‘The Balladeer’ McKenna reveals, “I’m at the age now where you can see really well where you’re going, because you’re helping your parents and you’ve lived through what your kids are doing. It’s this weird emotional time where you’re like a bookkeeper, writing it all down, trying to make sense of it, and add it all up somehow.”
McKenna starts the album with the evocative ‘This Town Is A Woman’, joined by Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman on vocals. In the song, McKenna compares one’s hometown to a caring and nurturing maternal figure. “She knows where you go / When you want to be alone / This town is a woman,” she sings with a sense of love, patience, and wisdom that only motherhood can evoke. This heartwarming track swells with acoustic guitars, pianos, gentle percussion, and lush melodies in the finest country tradition.
McKenna then gives us the haunting title track ‘The Balladeer’, where she seemingly draws from her own journey as a musician and a songwriter. "She sings every song that she knows / The way she hears them sad and slow / Never gonna play her on the radio / She hangs out in the darkest bars / With downtrodden beating hearts,'' sings McKenna, over the understated and delicate backing accompaniment. Vocalist Kirsten Rogers elevates the song with her backing vocals while also playing a key character in the song’s narrative. There's also an intimate music video available for this song, which was directed by John Moessner. “I just loved the title ‘The Balladeer’,” says McKenna. “When that song popped out, I thought, ‘This is what I’ve been doing all this time – singing all these sad, slow songs! So, it’s very fitting as a title, even though the song has nothing to do with me,” she quips.
With her next song ‘Marie’, McKenna creates an exquisite musical gift for her sister. Drawing on her love and respect for her older sibling, McKenna celebrates her influence and the cherished relationship they share with this gorgeously lush, heartwarming track. She sings, “God knows we couldn’t be more different / The two of us cut from the same cloth / One end must be velvet soft / The other denim and gabardine,” talking about what makes the two of them uniquely different but intrinsically similar at the same time.
In the stirring number ‘The Dream’, McKenna imagines that someone who is now long gone gets the magical opportunity to pass on their love and wisdom to a descendant they have never known. “He was telling you a story / I’m not sure which one it was / Using his hands to mark out something / Maybe the size of his love,” sings McKenna on this track that is a surefire tear-jerker with its themes of time-honored knowledge and new blood.
With ‘Uphill’, McKenna channels the best friend that she can be on this incredibly comforting and inspiring track. With its tranquil and lullaby-like quality, the song instills one with the hope and love that only a cherished friend can bring. “When the weight of your troubles / Sends your knee into the dirt / And all your loyal distractions / Only magnify the hurt / The lonesome doesn’t quite define / How so alone you feel / I’ll walk with you / Even if it’s uphill,” she sings with warmth and affection.
McKenna then gives us a playful and romantic take on the struggles of holding a relationship together with ‘Good Fight’. Written along with her Love Junkies compatriots, who have their own takes on relationship dynamics, the song is almost saccharine in its treatment of the harder aspects of love. “Don’t try to kiss me yet / Coz I ain’t over it / Whatever you do don’t make me laugh / Coz you ain’t gonna win,” she sings playfully.
“I’m not a person who likes conflict. I’ve spent the majority of my life avoiding conflicts at all costs,” the singer admits. “I’ve realized that the longer I’ve been married, those things that you fight through are really healthy in most cases. I wrote that with Hillary and Liz. We’re all in these relationships that are very different from one another, but we’re all on the same page of fighting through it – like, I could kill you, but I can’t live without you!”
A lifelong resident of Stoughton, Massachusetts, McKenna still lives down the road from her father's house. Inspired by photographs from her family home that serve as constant reminders of the past, McKenna feels that she’s almost ‘Stuck In High School’, a memory that she draws on fondly. “It took a long time / For my feet to reach the floor / When they finally did/ I was ready for the world,” she reminisces through the song, as she channels nostalgia and anecdotes from her times growing up. The song also serves as an homage to her high school, which was sadly demolished in recent years.
‘When You’re My Age’ is a song inspired by TV's David Letterman, who was talking about what the world would look like when his own son reached his age. The Love Junkies wrote this song together, crafting an incredibly sentimental and inspiring song about the innermost wishes and desires that a loving parent had for their children. “And your mind will still be full of questions / That I wish I had the answers to right now / In those dark times / Might make second guesses / I’ll bet love will still be making the world go around,” she sings. The track is now the official song for the Class of 2020 by Jostens, America's leading provider of custom class jewelry, graduation products, and yearbooks.
‘Two Birds’ sees McKenna create a narrative where the worlds of a wife and a mistress collide. “One got a diamond ring / One got a hotel room / One got a promise / One got to say I do,” she sings with musical levity, on a subject that often gets the heartbreak/ache treatment. Amidst the jaunty pianos and shuffling beats, this is one of McKenna's more upbeat tracks on offer.
The album closer ‘Till You’re Grown’ is an ode to her own daughter who just recently graduated school. Full of wisdom and soulful advice, McKenna dials up her maternal instincts while creating a song that would serve as a friend and companion entirely on its own. “That high school hall won’t be so long / You won’t want to get down it so fast / Working a Saturday won’t kill you / And Friday night won’t be all you have,” she sings, as she draws from both her own youthful impatience and world-weary wisdom.
Throughout the years, McKenna has crafted moving, tender, and highly-relatable musical narratives, which have struck a chord with millions of Americans. Rightly lauded as one of America’s most respected songwriters and ‘documentarians of domesticity’, McKenna’s innate ability to celebrate beauty and humanity through her incredible storytelling craft is second-to-none.
To celebrate the release of 'The Balladeer' on July 24, McKenna will be live streaming an acoustic concert at Club Passim in Cambridge, Massachusetts at 8 pm ET. Available to stream via the venue’s Facebook and YouTube pages, the event will feature McKenna performing songs from the album and also serve as a fundraiser for Club Passim. All donations made during the performance will benefit the venue, which has temporarily shifted its events online due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Do tune in for that if you can!