" My Pick For The BEST New Indie Country Artist CD For 2002"
Lolene
"Lonely Dealin’s"
By
Jim Moulton
July 1, 2002
This is Lolene's debut CD and it is a very good one. Lolene has a great country voice and wrote many of the songs herself. Lolene's motto is "Country Music With An Attitude" and you can pick that up in the rock influences you hear in her music. Her voice is very emotive and reminds one of greatness.
This CD was recorded at Bayou Studios in Nashville, Tennessee, and produced by Colonel Buster Doss (who also wrote one of the best songs), who is a legend in this field of "indie" country music, winning numerous awards. George Clinton is the Sound Engineer. Danny Parks provides all of the guitar work and is the sessions' leader. Larry Franklin (fiddler extraordinaire) provides the excellent fiddle work.
The CD overall has a well balanced very good quality sound.7 songs are written by Lolene and the Colonel throws in a dandy and the other 4 are written by a variety of people. Most of the CD has a contemporary country sound with a lot of electric guitar and even some dual guitar breaks and rock sounding drums. Any nuances were left outside the door, this CD rocks. The one song that sort of breaks this mold is "The Man I Love"(Colonel Buster Doss) which is a traditional country shuffle, great song, band is really in a groove and Lolene is at her best sounding a lot like Patsy Cline. This is one of my favorites. A lot of the CD's sound reminds me of early Linda Ronstadt when she had Andrew Gold playing guitar for her and was at the height of her country phase.
"Slow Burn"- Great upbeat country rock number, great vocals, written by Lolene and Suzanne Smith.
"You Say the Word"- This is a very nice country ballad with some great guitar breaks
"I Don't Mind the Rain"- Another Lolene written song; acoustic shuffle, great guitar and haunting peddle steel, great lyrics (my favorite)
"Don't Wake Me Up"- Great self-written upbeat country rock ballad. Great Song.
"The Deals Gone Down"- Upbeat southern rocker, great fiddle break, this one rocks
"I Will"- Beautiful Ballad, rock influenced-this is a very nice country ballad with some rock influences, love this song.
My advice is go to Lolene's site and buy it. This is good as anything coming out of Nashville today. I know you are waiting for me to come out with my negative side of the CD. This sounds too positive for me. Well, how about don't lose it. It would have sounded better if it had been mastered, but the sound quality is excellent the way it is.
Visit Lolene's Web site:
God Bless-Jim
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