Reviews
Artist:Gretchen Peters
Album:Burnt Toast
Label:Curb
Tracks:12
Website:http://gretchenpeters.com/
Gretchen Peters. Anyone who grew up listening to country music, or who had developed an affinity with singer songwriters, will doubtless recognize the name and what it represents. For anyone who doesn't, for many years Gretchen has written hit songs for other artists, from George Strait to Trisha Yearwood, with nearly everyone else in between. Perhaps she is most famous for having penned Martina McBride's number one hit 'Independence Day' for which she won a CMA award for best song.
I grew up listening to country music and used to scour the booklets of every CD looking for the songs written by Gretchen, knowing they'd be at least amongst my favourite on the album. However, when I was sixteen in 1996 Gretchen toured the Uk. That was when I discovered what many have discovered in the years since (thanks to countless UK tours and regular airplay on Radio 2 courtesy of Terry Wogan and Bob Harris) - that Gretchen's finest work is that which she writes and records herself.
This is her fifth album and as Gretchen would be the first to admit, her most personal yet. It was produced by Doug Lancio, whose work she admired on Patty Griffin's last CD. He also appears playing guitar on some of the tracks, with some additional help from bassist Dave Francis, drummer John Gardner, Jim Hoke and Barry Walsh on keyboard and piano. Anyone who has seen Gretchen perform live over the last few years will know what a talented musician he is and that Gretchen's delivery and his musicianship together create nothing short of pure magic.
Peters delivers a set of new songs that is quite simply haunting in its lyrical honesty and accompanying melodies, sophisticated yet simple in their arrangement and delivery. It was written and recorded over a three year period, during which she was going through a divorce from her husband and producer of twenty three years (which followed a "mid life epiphany one day in 2004, on a bus somewhere in the UK."'). Gretchen has said "I don't write to express how I feel; I write to find out. I'm usually as surprised as anybody" She openly admits that this has never been truer than of this CD.
The CD title comes from a line in the song 'Breakfast at our house' which she describes as 'the crux of the album, the image of a marriage falling apart.' The lyrics of this song are pure poetry, and it is perhaps one of the most moving songs she has ever written. This song 'Ghost' she feels is a bookend to this, a portrait of a woman who feels she has become invisible. It explores how With the passing of years you can become someone unrecognizable to your younger self. As with so many of the songs on this CD, the song seems to operate in multi faceted layers and it doesn't take a genius to work out who the song is actually about. That, however, is the beauty of it. As with the whole CD, Gretchen has thrown herself out there and exposed her deepest feelings and vulnerabilities. Yet, by doing so she has also showed us both her inner strength and her strength as a writer and performer.
"The Lady of the House," a co-write with David Mead, is a stirring story of a neglected housewife and a traveling salesman, which has the listener hooked from the opening line. 'Thirsty' is another portrait of marital disconnect. Gretchen says of this song, "We're all thirsty for something; we just find different ways to quench it. Some do it with alcohol, some do it with religion, some do it with sex… Doug Lancio is playing a cheap $20 TrueTone guitar on this track, and Jim Hoke's drunken clarinet was the coup de grace." "Jezebel" is a complex song about how at the end of the day, we love who we love, regardless of how others may moralise. "Summer people," whilst ostensibly about tourists and the beach, is a very subtle reference to inconstancy. Bearing in mind the themes of the CD the setting and characters, in my opinion, also become a metaphor.
An interesting addition to this collection is "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road.)" Written by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer, it was first performed by Fred Astaire but made popular by Frank Sinatra. I suspect it may be one of the few songs Gretchen didn't write which she wishes she did as she turns her hand (or should I say voice) to it effortlessly. If you close your eyes you can almost imagine being in a jazz bar in New York, but when you listen closely to the lyrics, the song couldn't be more at home than it is juxtaposed with Gretchen's own works on this album.
Although Gretchen has been known to refer to herself as 'The Mistress of Melancholy' and jokes that she doesn't write many happy songs, there are songs on this CD which are certainly, if not happy, then more contented in tone. "England Blues" is the result of several years of touring England, and translates as a celebration of a continually developing affinity with our country. There are specific references to London and to a hotel here on the River Tyne.
."Sunday Morning" is a little snapshot of contentment, with maybe just a thread of wistfulness running through, combined with images of Gretchen's neighbourhood. This song feels like the picture of contentment - could it be the happiest song Gretchen has written to date? "This town" is an upbeat celebration of Gretchen's town, but it could be anyone's really. It is enhanced by the Celtic influences carried over from when it was played at Glasgow's Celtic Connections festival before recording. Of "The Way You Move me," Gretchen says, "The redeeming and transformative power of love - how it feels just at the beginning - the sweetest and most ephemeral of feelings. A real love song, maybe the first straightforward, unguarded and guileless one I've written." It is another example of poetry set to music, comparing love to Church. There is, I suspect, a clue there that things are looking up again for Gretchen Peters.
Recently I read a quote from Gretchen which said, "I think great songs are born. They are born with all the urgency of childbirth, born out of pain, anger, joy, wit, and delivered by instinct, skill and love. I think writers are born, too." I believe that with one play "Burnt Toast and Offerings" proves all of these things to be true. Gretchen Peters truly is one of, if not the finest songwriter of our generation and this release is destined to make the rest of the world realize that for themselves.
Helen Mitchell