For Brigitte DeMeyer, it was only a matter of time.
She was already one of the most discussed artists in the Americana movement. Her work stirred accolades in national media. She was tapped to open shows for Marc Cohn, Dan Fogelberg – and Bob Dylan. She wrote songs as weavers thread tapestries, her most vivid colors being a Southern feel, a churchy soulfulness in her vocals, and a way with words that bore comparison to literature as easily as to the best contemporary lyrics.
Yet she had one more line to cross, the one that lay between all that she had accomplished and Nashville, in some respects her spiritual home yet a place she had never recorded until this year. The result, Red River Flower, is a turning point in her journey, taking her closer to the sound toward which she has been working for years.
Again, it comes down to timing: the confluence between her creative growth and her decision to mark it by gathering some of her favorite collaborators, including producer Brady Blade and Americana legend Buddy Miller, along with guitarist Mike Henderson, steel and dobro player Al Perkins, keyboardist Phil Madeira, bassist Chris Donohue and backing singers Regina McCrary and Gayle Mayes – musicians whose empathy for DeMeyer’s songs impresses nearly as much as the songs themselves. “This album is closer to my heart than anything I’ve done before,” she insists. “It represents my voice the best, and when you hear it more clearly then the lyrics have that much more meaning.”
Those who follow DeMeyer will recognize her artistry on this album while noticing as well that it has risen to a higher level. “Being in Nashville affected me,” she says. “When I’d worked before with Buddy, sometimes it was done by mailing music files back and forth. But to have him show up and be in the studio with me and the other players is a completely different experience.”
That’s evident from the first notes of the track, “Shepherd.” The groove is relaxed but irresistible, sweetened by rustic dobro fills from Al Perkins and down-home harmonies on the chorus prayer: “Oh, Lord, make a shepherd out of me.” The feeling continues throughout Red River Flower, whose acoustic textures, lashed by flashes of rock intensity, illuminate the ache and understatement of DeMeyer’s vocal.
The finger-snap, street-song feel of “Looking for Moses,” the soaring metaphor and stark eloquence of “Bird,” the gospel-meets-Bourbon-Street swagger of “Justice,” the roadhouse stomp “Wicked to Win” and the steamy blues shuffle on “When I’m Gone”: Listening to all of Red River Flower is like spending an hour or so with a friend or a loved one in the comfort of a living room, the conversation shifting from whispers to tears to laughter, just before she boards that train toward bigger stages and brighter times. “That’s exactly what I wanted,” DeMeyer confirms. “That’s why we made Red River Flower sound real instead of affected and layered. It’s the kind of music I like to listen to, so it’s the kind of music I wanted to make.”
That meant cutting these 12 original songs and one cover live in Nashville, encouraging everybody to track live and, on “Shepherd,” while assembled in one room, like a prayer circle in the former church known now as Ocean Way Studios. “The harmonies and maybe a few guitar tracks were overdubbed, but that was it,” she says. “Everything else was cut live because there’s a vibe that comes through when everyone plays together you can’t capture second time around.
All of the history that preceded these sessions feeds into Red River Flower. Brought up on the move as the daughter of a Navy man, she absorbed music wherever his tours took him. By the time she’d settled in San Francisco, DeMeyer was ready to build her sound as a writer and singer, through doing solo and duo gigs and eventually recording her first several albums, Another Thousand Miles, Nothing Comes Free and Something After All.
The music press noticed immediately. DeMeyer was compared favorably to Sheryl Crow in Dirty Linen and to Steve Earle in Vintage Guitar. Her CDs have been described as “impressive from start to finish” in No Depression and playing “like one long seduction” in Performing Songwriter.
It’s a strong catalog that foreshadows even better things to come. Red River Flower brings that promise to life.
Brigitte DeMeyer – Red River Flower
www.brigittedemeyer.com
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