CD Reviews for 12/05/07 – Elizabeth Cook,
Compact Capsules for 12/05/07
by Dan Ferguson
by Dan Ferguson
Elizabeth Cook
Balls
31 Tigers Records TOT3101
Right off the bat, it takes balls to call an album Balls, especially if you’re a woman. Coming from a free thinker like Elizabeth Cook (who by the way, now hosts her own Friday morning show on Sirius’s Outlaw Country channel), calling her album that, especially in these oh so politically correct times, is not such a stretch. With the release of Balls, Cook is now three albums into her career as a country singer and songwriter. While there’s been moments, commercial success has been hard to come by. Even without the chart success, the highly attractive and sweet singing soprano has had her share of success on the Grand Ol’ Opry where she’s been a regular of sorts since early in the decade. Let a title like Balls scare you away and you’ll be missing out on a solid record that is as edgy as it is country. Produced by Rodney Crowell who guests on vocals, as does Nancy Griffith, Cook sings with a confident swagger on this album that straddles the contemporary and alt sides of the country fence. A cookin’ band that features the pitchfork-pronged guitar attack of the Nashville trio of Kenny Vaughan, Richard Bennett and husband Tim Carroll is about as good as it gets on the ax front. It pays nothing but dividends. (Check out www.elizabeth-cook.com)
(Dan Ferguson is a free-lance music writer and host of The Boudin Barndance, broadcast Thursday nights from 6 – 9 pm on WRIU-FM 90.3. He lives in Peace Dale and can be reached at [email protected].)