Clay Pasternak

****1/2

A former English teacher in Boston, where she built a reputation as a talented folksy singer-songwriter, Jenny Reynolds has been based in Austin, Texas for the past 17 years. She recorded this fourth album at Austin’s Congress House Studio with co-producers by Mark Hallman and Andre Moran and featuring such legendary Austin musicians as Scrappy Jud Newcomb (electric and nylon-string guitar), Warren Hood (fiddle), BettySoo (harmonies, accordion), Oliver Steck (cornet), Jenifer Jackson, Jaimee Harris (harmonies), Nate Rowe (bass) and Hallman (drums, percussion, Hammond, bass, Fender Rhodes) with Jenny playing acoustic and electric guitar. This is a uniquely beautiful album with a classic American roots sound, featuring the empathy of her folk origins as they stretch across an overarching blanket of country, blues, and folk. Sometimes even the most worthy albums take multiple spins to register in my ever-dimming comprehension. This one had me by the first track (There Is Road), and I defy you not to experience likewise.
Jenny is a compelling storyteller and this album is full of engrossing yarns, many of which will cut deep into your soul. That opening track lays out in precise lyrical detail the plights of refugees, that so many around the world dub illegal immigrants. The ‘Road’ is the only escape from violence, repression, hunger and despair and the hope of a better life to the north across the border. A Mexican flavoured musical palette creates a sound that is both gnarled and beautiful … simultaneously polished and tarnished on this haunting song with some deftly played finger-picking licks that are sure to catch the attention of listeners. Evocative acoustic guitar sets the mood for the title song as a mother watches in despair as a daughter leaves the failing family farm for a better life. Glimmering accordion and fiddle with Jenny’s vocals fill the track with a cinematic quality. Dance For Me is sun-soaked with relaxed, back-to-basics guitar strumming as the life of a dancer unfolds to the bitter realisation that at 40 the dance is over. The Trouble I’m In is a gospel-flavoured blues tune full of regret and redemption that sounds decades old with bluesy electric guitar and Jenny’s powerful vocal tones. She showcases her romantic side with the lustful The Way You Tease with a jazzy vibe emphasised by Oliver Steck’s cornet, Before I Know You’re Gone is a dark number that ventures into mountain hillbilly territory with just acoustic guitar and fiddle accompaniment to Jenny’s emotional vocal.

Jenny is the producer of Austin's ‘Williams Nite: A Tribute to the Music of Hank and Lucinda Williams,’ an annual show that is due to celebrate its tenth anniversary this autumn, Her version of Hank Williams’ I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, which closes this album, is haunting, one of the best you'll ever hear. Displaying her classic singer-songwriter and country-folk roots, this album makes evident Jenny Reynolds’ embrace of the multi-genres she is drawn to (with a fusion of country, pop, folk, blues and jazz) and her talents to sculpt poetic musical portraits; soul-ly’ for the discerning listener with a learned, cohesive and stylistically daring acoustic sound all of her very own.

www.jennyreynolds.com

August 2020