  When
I started spinning these tunes, I was taken somewhere that I wasn't
fully expecting. With a fiddle on the cover, and "Nashville"
in the title, I was expecting a full-on country album. And there were
a few country tunes, but by and large it felt more like the LDS folk
singer/songwriter thing that Peter Breinholt, Shane Jackman, and others
have established here in the valley.
And,
while that was refreshing, since I'm not a big country fan, it also
left me wondering. Where IS all the LDS country music? It has seemed
to me to be such an obvious fit for so many years, why hasn't anyone
done it? Sure, country has its share of cheatin', cryin' in your
beer tunes, but there's also a lot of positive, family-oriented
messages as well. So where's the country in our souls?
But
I digress…
While
there are some real moments of greatness in the musical performance
of these songs, the real shining star is the writing. Solid, powerful
messages, beautifully crafted. I especially liked the choice Jason
Deere made in writing about the prophet, instead of writing from
the prophet's point of view. In fact, many of the stories in the
songs are about people around Joseph. The one about Porter Rockwell
was particularly great, and the song about Emma helped me to see
her in a new light.
The
only song written from Joseph's perspective was "Lamb to the
Slaughter", and I felt like that one was handled very very
well.
The
narrations between the songs were cool to help transition from song
to song and set up the story of each work. That was nice, since
the overall CD isn't necessarily chronological. Still, the reading
felt a little stiff to me, and kinda pulled me out of the mood that
the music itself was setting. That's really my only real complaint
about this CD.
Another
interesting thing about this project, is that is very clear that
this is a very Mormon collection. You can't sing about Joseph, Emma,
Hyrum, and Porter and be trying to get a CCM (Contemporary Christian
Music) record deal with it! And the messages are a strong testimony
of the restoration.
If
I were a bigger fan of the country/folksy sound, I'd probably be
all over this project. But I can see that it was very well made.
In addition to touching music fans, maybe it will inspire other
country singers in the church to do church-related country music.
------------------------
Mark Hansen
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