This is an album of angel songs, soft gospel, and country music with a bluegrass beat. It’s happy and inspirational, hauntingly beautiful, and designed to soothe what ails you.
Many listeners claim it helps them sleep. Soldiers and veterans say their favorite song is “Angel On My Shoulder” because that’s what got them safely through battle.
According to Lisa Dudley, “People are buying ten copies at a time” to share with their friends and family. “So many grieving families write me and thank me for this album.”
A long time coming, this lovely CD is a gentle compilation of songs that were inspired by prayer and true stories. Lisa Dudley says she has seen and spoken to the angels she writes about. And she has lived through the experiences she sings about.
“There is a joyful sense of renewal when morning comes and sorrow is gone,” she adds, “even if it’s just for one blissful moment.”
Would you like to read this cool review of these songs?:
Lisa Dudley, Angel on My Shoulder
DoRight Records, Woodstock, NY
How do you like your country music? Churned out by a honky-tonk devil or touched by an angel? Fundamentalists believe music was created solely to praise The Lord (and to beat up heathens), but Lisa Dudley offers a new genre: New Age Country.
On this self-produced CD, recorded at Ozark, Missouri, the Woodstock-based singer/songwriter croons in a supple, weather-beaten voice about healing light, guardian angels perched on various body parts and the love of a far more nurturing and forgiving Jesus.
The only lineage that Dudley reveals is that her great-grandmother hailed from Oklahoma. Whether she was born and raised there and channels family history or simply has a galloping case of Dustbowl envy is not apparent.
But Dudley's compositions are a refreshing change from the usual bunch of mewling pro-war hayseed pap currently on the charts and, uncannily, have the immediate feel of a lived-in standard.
Besides, I tip my hat to anyone who can sing of a convoy of trucker angels and insists it's a true story. If Dudley's ditties of hard luck and sweet inspiration occasionally flirt with over-earnestness, the crack team of musicians she has assembled on fiddle, mouth harp, dobro, and upright bass gallantly rescue her from bathos. www.lisadudley.com.
- Jay Blotcher, the Chronogram, August 2006 issue
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