Well, now this is very nice. I like the Dixie Chicks, Maines' old band, a fair bit, and so I would've expected to like a solo record from her anyway, but what propelled me to pick it up so quickly was seeing that it included versions of two songs from albums that I listened to a lot during my teenage years, "Mother" (from The Wall) and "Lover, You Should've Come Over".
So, as to those two - the first, which also gives the album its title, is reinvented as an acoustically-based lament, while still retaining some of the weird overtones of the original, and done well. And then "Lover...", in some ways a braver cover choice than "Hallelujah" (which has been tackled by plenty of others, post-Buckley) or "Last Goodbye" (the most transcendent moment on Grace - an album, incidentally, that only grows in stature over time - but not as simply, wrenchingly building and sprawling as "Lover..."); I wasn't sure about Maines' version for the first couple of listens - while she conveys the emotion, some of the high notes are slightly beyond her - but it's now fully won me over...the sure way to tell being that listening to it, all 7 minutes, brings a direct connection to the song itself and to what it stirringly evokes, and not just in a subsidiary way in relation to Buckley's magnificent original.
Overall, Mother leans more on the rock side of things than the country - far fewer harmonies than her old band, for one thing (in some ways a pity, as they were always a high point, but this album represents enough of a different direction that they're not actually missed) - but it's all a continuum, and there was plenty of ecumenicism in the Dixie Chicks' approach too. There's a cover of a Patty Griffin song, "Silver Bell", but it doesn't stand out; opener "Without You", apparently an Eddie Vedder original, does, as do the chugging, mid-tempo "Come Cryin' To Me" (not the only song on the album to remind me of Tift Merritt) and closing ballad "Take It On Faith".
(Taking the Long Way; Fly; Home; Wide Open Spaces & Top of the World (live))
So, as to those two - the first, which also gives the album its title, is reinvented as an acoustically-based lament, while still retaining some of the weird overtones of the original, and done well. And then "Lover...", in some ways a braver cover choice than "Hallelujah" (which has been tackled by plenty of others, post-Buckley) or "Last Goodbye" (the most transcendent moment on Grace - an album, incidentally, that only grows in stature over time - but not as simply, wrenchingly building and sprawling as "Lover..."); I wasn't sure about Maines' version for the first couple of listens - while she conveys the emotion, some of the high notes are slightly beyond her - but it's now fully won me over...the sure way to tell being that listening to it, all 7 minutes, brings a direct connection to the song itself and to what it stirringly evokes, and not just in a subsidiary way in relation to Buckley's magnificent original.
Overall, Mother leans more on the rock side of things than the country - far fewer harmonies than her old band, for one thing (in some ways a pity, as they were always a high point, but this album represents enough of a different direction that they're not actually missed) - but it's all a continuum, and there was plenty of ecumenicism in the Dixie Chicks' approach too. There's a cover of a Patty Griffin song, "Silver Bell", but it doesn't stand out; opener "Without You", apparently an Eddie Vedder original, does, as do the chugging, mid-tempo "Come Cryin' To Me" (not the only song on the album to remind me of Tift Merritt) and closing ballad "Take It On Faith".
(Taking the Long Way; Fly; Home; Wide Open Spaces & Top of the World (live))
