Bonnie Montgomery
Bonnie Montgomery
Produced by Jason Weinheimer, Nathan Howdeshell, and Bonnie
Montgomery
© 2014 Fast Weapons Records
Bonnie Montgomery is not retro. She is Old School. She plays
a brand of country music that hearkens back to its classic days when Hank
Williams Sr., Johnny Cash, and Patsy Cline topped the charts. Indeed, her vibrant
(and classically trained) alto puts one in mind of Cline’s instrument, but
where Patsy’s music was polished to a fine, sparkling sheen, Bonnie favors the
earthy grit and boom-chicka rhythm of
Johnny Cash’s Tennessee Three. Nathan Howdeshell (moonlighting from the famous
dance-punk band Gossip) brings guitar sounds that are thoroughly modern, while
still recalling the resonator and “wobble tone” six strings of vintage and
classic country.
“I left old Black County just to search for my soul,” Bonnie
sings in the opening verse of the album, uttering a phrase that comes as close
as anything to expressing the album’s predominant theme. Bonnie Montgomery is suffused with a profound wanderlust. It’s
filled with tales of the homes we leave, the homes we find, and the tension
between the two. Bonnie is the sole songwriter for all ten songs on the album.
Some of these songs springs from her personal and/or family history (“Nashville,”
“Daddy’s,” “Joy”), others from her considerable imagination. All of them are
rooted in the long-standing, and long-neglected, tradition of country music as
a storytelling medium, a medium at which Bonnie exceeds. “Take Me or Leave Me,”
with its religious imagery and spare first-person perspective, is an outlaw
song worthy of Johnny Cash. In just a few words, “Cropdust Skies” recalls all
the small, happy memories of a shared life to evoke a deep sense of time and
place, celebrating the life of a lost love.
Bonnie’s been playing all or most of these songs for several
years now, which has resulted in a mature and confident debut album that will,
I believe, rank among the year’s best releases. The best part is, if you’ve
seen her live more than once, you know she has a repertoire deep enough to
record a follow-up that’s just as good without writing a single new song.
Bonnie Montgomery is
available today for download at iTunes and Amazon. You can purchase the CD locally at Arkansas Record and CD
Exchange, or order it online
from Fast Weapons Records. A vinyl LP version is planned for later this year.
