By Craig Havighurst, Music City Roots Producer
As I grew old and experienced enough to realize that in the wider world around me men had been strutting around for centuries acting like the superior gender, entitled as if by divine right to every possible advantage from “I get to be President” to “make me a sandwich,” I began to feel it must be some kind of cosmic joke subsumed under a grand conspiracy. From my point of view, just observationally and objectively speaking over my 50 years, in the vital human capacities of fortitude, patience, compassion, wisdom and just getting s&!% done without drama, women leave men gasping for air by the side of the road. Don’t get me wrong, my brethren include exceptional people and brilliant achievers. But as the old saying goes, women (when given the chance) match the best of us step for step, backward and in high heels. While certain media brutes find talk like that gender treason and the truths behind it threatening to their baby brains, I find women a blessing and a bounty.
That’s more than you wanted to know about me, but it’s what comes rushing to mind as I reflect on our first all female lineup in a long time. It was more a roll of the scheduling dice than any grand design. But what an opportunity it turned out to be to hear and feel a range of expression, style and profound individualism, despite the superficial similarity of four lady songwriters each with her own two to four-piece band. Because being an outstanding artist comes from inside, from people who’ve refined their capacity to share their soul with sound. Here’s four women who’ve achieved that and who are growing fast.
Laney Jones opened our night with her band The Spirits, and though she’s no teen, her music had a teen spirit, no smells. It was folk rock with a punky half snarl that conjured up for me the Elvis Costello/Nick Lowe collaborations of years gone by. Opener “Do What You Want” had a cool major/minor modulation built in and a pulsing chorus. Jones donned a harmonica rack for “Troubled Mind” that was Dylan going electric over a marching beat. She did a spare, slow and aching “Cold Cold Heart” and closed with a sensational duet vocal with her bass player Tre Hester.