Graham Reid | | 1 min read
Jackie Bristow: River
Singer-songwriter Bristow moved from New Zealand to Austin in 2008 (where this, her third album, was recorded) and it would be easy and convenient to drop her into the alt.country/country category.
Certainly on the recent tour with Tami Neilson and Lauren Thomson she fitted into that zone. Those three gals delivered a terrific show which would have been acclaimed in any country music bar in Texas.
But there is something more to Bristow and it is evident on the title track here where she has a soulful, almost gospel, edge -- a point emphasised by the stirring Hammond organ and handclap backing vocals on the chorus. She brings the church into the bar, or vice-versa.
She hits a similar point in the ballad Running and on Pray for the Love where those backing vocals add punch to the messages. And Bristow has stories to tell.
On Holy Mess she tells a dark, small town tale of Catholicism, alcoholism, a mail-order bride and the need to fight to be free. It's country in a way, but rocks urgently like a disillusioned Bobbie Gentry with Lee Clayton in the band, and the story is told in sketches. You fill in the unpleasant gaps.
As you do on the bitter, brittle but assertive Broken Girl.
She also delivers some attractive ballads: the healing and soul-tinged mood of River with sweeping guitars from co-producer Mark Punch; and Aotearoa at the end, with a haka break, which is a gentle and evocative paean to her homeland.
In many places this sounds like Bristow's escape album and the song titles suggest as much: Freedom, Running, Hightail It Outta Here, Broken Girl and Rebel in my Soul. It's there in some lyrics which flash through also, "I have been runnin' from you but I'm still holding on to the dream I once knew"; "I'm drowning here tonight in a bottle"; "I don't want to carry around this shame"; "I'm going to let the world take care of all the things I can't change" . . .
There is a subtext of faith (and faith questioned) throughout.
Only the rather workmanlike Hightail It Outta Here sounds like country-rock by numbers. The rest of this album confirms a major talent.
And whatever she's running from or to, it makes for gripping listening.
Kathy Watson - Feb 23, 2010
I heard her in concert last week and she is amazing. Why there are not more people who know about her is beyond me. This is a real voice as we had in the 70's. Great tone, range and she really means what she sings. A real gem
SaveSouldiver - Feb 24, 2010
Looking really forward to hearing the new record. Big fan of "Crazy Love." Have seen Jackie perform numerous times here in Austin, Texas. She is one of my all-time favorite performers and can't wait to hear her live again after her tour and travels are complete. Congratulations on the new record, Jackie!
SaveFlanfire Austin Texas - Mar 2, 2010
Jackie swooped into Austin with her Aussie pal Kara Grainger and immediately had producers lined up around the block and inviting me to dinner because she and I are friends. She fed herself for nearly a year thanks to her golden voice and her ardent guitar -- and most of all, her honesty and her wit. Like Australia's Kasey Chambers, Jackie conquered Austin and wears her cowgirl boots like a native (when she's not going native at Barton Creek Pool). I watched this record being made, in some of the finest studios with some of the finest players on two continents plus ... there is a spiritual energy from the cleansing of a heart twice broken .. the joy of reinventing herself in a new city halfway around the world from home .. and the twang that her sister Katrina puts into every one of HER country songs (way over in London these days). We may soon form a protest line around the U.S. State Department demanding that Jackie be let back into Austin with full citizenship privileges -- because we have wholly adopted her and now she is a naturalized citizen of the Live Music Capital of the world .....
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