KASEY CHAMBERS

COVER GIRL

Kasey Chambers kicks back with some alt-country comforts on Storybook

By: MATT ASHARE |
Published: August 8, 2012 http://www2.the-burg.com/

On Storybook, Chambers  has fun with some of her favorite songs.

The Hank Williams standard "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," Suzanne Vega's folk-pop classic "Luka," and the Cyndi Lauper mega-hit "True Colors" are three of the more instantly recognizable tracks on Storybook (Sugar Hill), the new album by Australian songstress Kasey Chambers. Americana enthusiasts will more than likely find plenty of other familiar titles here, from the Bakersfield swing of Gram Parsons' "Return of the Grievous Angel" and the spare ruminations of Steve Earle's "Nothing But a Child," to the two-stepping swagger of Lucinda Williams’ "Happy Woman Blues" and the playful roadhouse strut of John Prine's "Leave the Lights On." While there are a couple of relative obscurities – "Everything's Turning To White," a tragic elegy written by fellow Aussie Paul Kelly, is the first that comes to mind — it doesn't take long to figure out that Chambers has taken the liberty on Storybook to set her pen aside for a spell and take a stab at some of her favorite songs written by other artists.

       As Chambers charmingly puts it, by way of introducing the disc's final cut, a lovely live recording of Patti Griffin's poetic "Top of the World," "Bear with me. I really don't know this song very well. But I've been dying to play it. . ." No worries there: Chambers' rendition may not be as pitch-perfect smooth as the Griffin original, but she more than makes up for that with her soulful delivery, bringing just enough grit to bear to an open-ended lyric like "I wished I'd had known you/I wished I'd had shown you/All the things that I was on the inside" to make it feel devastatingly personal.

       It's not particularly easy to get the green light to make an album of all covers. And it's certainly not always advisable. For most serious artists, it's a privilege that's earned, in large part by testing your own talents and proving you can stand on your own as a songwriter. That's something Chambers unquestionably achieved over the past dozen years on her home turf, where she's widely regarded as Australia's reigning country music star. She's never quite broken through here in the States, although she came close in 2000, after her solo debut The Captain, which featured the living-legend husband-and-wife team of Buddy and June Miller in supporting roles, went double platinum in Australia, and Lucinda Williams was kind enough to bring her along on a U.S tour.  Prior to that, Chambers had spent over a decade cutting her teeth as a frontwoman with the Dead Ringer Band, a family affair that also featured her parents and older brother. So it's fairly safe to say that Chambers, who headlines the Birchmere in Alexandria, VA, on August 10th, has paid her dues­ – that she's well within her rights to cadge from the canon and indulge in what might otherwise be considered a mere vanity project.

       That said, Storybook doesn’t come across as anything even remotely resembling a grand statement of artistic purpose. And the only element that appears to tie the album together thematically is Chambers’ personal fondness for the material. To paraphrase her intro to “Top of the World,” these are simply 15 tunes she’s been dying to record – songs that are part of her own storybook in the sense that they’re each uniquely woven into the fabric of her own identity as a singer and a songwriter.

       And that’s a big part of what makes Storybook such a pleasure. Chambers doesn’t go out of her way to radically reinvent or reinterpret the 15 songs she chooses to take on. She’s more or less just having a good old time, even on a track as softly somber as Gillian Welch’s “Orphan Girl.” She’s bold enough to take certain liberties with “True Colors,” nudging it onto folksier roots terrain that suits her style. But her “Luka” — a storyteller’s song that’s right up Chambers’ alley — gets a fairly straight reading.  (It should be noted that five of the disc’s tracks, including the live Griffin cover, Lauper’s “True Colors,” and Paul Kelly’s "Everything's Turning To White," were previously released on various EPs dating all the way back to 2000.)

       It’s probably worth asking whether or not there’s much point in covering a signature song like “Luka” if you’re not reworking it. But, again, one of the strengths of Storybook is that Chambers doesn’t strain to make each and every track here her own. Instead, she achieves something quite a bit more sublime by conveying the solace and thrill she’s taken from these songs, and returning the favor by imparting subtle emotional shadings of her own. Besides, while “Luka” isn’t what you’d call a deep cut, it hasn’t exactly been in heavy rotation for the past two decades. And I, for one, was happy to rediscover “Guilty,” a dark tale of turbulent romance from Matthew Ryan’s mostly forgotten 1997 debut, dusted off by Chambers and rocked up with churning guitars and a muscular backbeat.

       That’s the sort of unexpected gift an album like Storybook can deliver. And, if the name Kasey Chambers is still new to you, Storybook provides a seductive slice of mostly familiar countrified comforts that may just draw you deeper into her back catalogue. It may not be particularly profound, but it’s a good time. And, ultimately, there’s really nothing wrong with that.