Tiffany Huggins Grant
Album: Jonquil Child
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 12
Website: www.tiffanygranthugginsmusic.com

Describing this as marking the arrival of a new name on the Americana scene is a little disingenuous, suggesting, as it does, that it's the Georgia's native's debut. In fact, she released her first album, Sing Sigh Kitty, three years ago, but it is true to say that this is the one that's attracted serious attention.

Named for her hometown of Smyrna, known as Jonquil City (for non-botanists, a junaquil is a variety of narcissus with clusters of yellow flowers), it leans to the mainstream side of the Nashville fence, but has enough about it to engage the more alt aspect of country fans. It also reveals a terrific voice that marries fire and pain in equal measure, the soaring pedal steel-led ballad Love Letters conjuring thoughts of a DNA match between Lucinda and Patsy.

She opens with a cover of Some Days A Dollar by Walt Wilkins and Dave Womack, a song you'd be prepared to swear had been done by country giants like Waylon and Willie but is actually relatively new. However, save for one other cover, everything else is either wholly self-penned or collaborations, and is strikingly open in addressing her struggles with alcohol and depression after moving to Nashville at an early age. It's there on the mid-tempo slow burner When It Rains where she sings about how she's messed everything up and that booze "burns just like memories in the flicker of a match", drink also the subject of Pamela Jackson's confessional One Too Many. Throw a physically and emotionally abusive step-father into the mix, and it's not hard to understand where songs like Out My Window with its theme of self-imposed isolation or the separate ways, broken relationship Tears Fall The Same were spawned

However, on the rockier, rhythm chugging Fighter she defiantly declares herself a "stubborn bitch" who refuses to stay down and that determination to make it through offers an upbeat balance to the melancholy and hurt. The southern country soul Trouble On My Mind acknowledges the hurdles, but then the twangy You're Not Alone talks about how a little help can keep you from slipping and sliding, suggesting she may well have spent some time in rehab or AA-type groups overcoming the demons. She certainly seems to have come out the other side, bruised, but strong, something encapsulated in the musically and lyrically upbeat statement of self and the journey taken that is the title track with producer Mark Robinson's electric guitar plugged into the soaring assertiveness.

Listening, it's not difficult to hear the soul influences among the country, a point underlined by the organ backed Ain't Nobody Leaves ("this place without singing the blues") that nods to her love of vintage Stax and Atlantic and legends like Otis Redding.

Bolstered by a solid set of lungs, strong melodies and unflinching lyrics, it's a hugely impressive collection that fully deserves to see her name spoken far and wide across the country circuit. Here's just to hoping that she doesn't have to go through the same sort of experiences to produce an album this good next time around.

Mike Davies