Verna Margaret has one of those voices. Not just technically good, actually, make that great but it just sounds as if you have been listening to it all your life. It sounds like the embodiment of the country sound, oozes with the spirit of folk music and feels as if it could just as easily have been heard emanating from a late-60s New York coffee shop or an early 70s Laurel Canyon jam session as from a modern recording.
This sonic tryptic, this musical hat trick that is Fair Weather Wife, might be musical small, but it is perfectly formed. “White Shutters, Red Door” reminds us that folk and country are essentially creative siblings; here, she blurs the lines slightly, and with a neat and unexpected time change, she signals that she is as much about tradition as adventure.
“Paper Cut” muses on relationships and temptation, a melancholy, mid-paced country ballad soaked in layers of guitars—soaring steel pedal, ’50s country-rock twangs, delicate sonic motifs, and acoustic strums —but is never overcrowded. A place for everything and everything in its place, as the saying goes.
“Lookin’ Back” rounds things up with a pragmatic and confident take on the love song, far from persuing the usual cliches of dependancy and not feeling worthy, she reminds us that relationships are at their strongest when they are built on trust and freedom, when the two people know their worth but also know that together they are considerably more than the sum of their parts.
So, if you are looking for an artist who tips her cowboy hat to the country music traditions of yore, yet is setting her sights on a bright new future for both herself and the genre, then Verna Margaret is just what you are looking for.
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