Oozing with stark and moody blues, she sounds more Lightnin’ Hopkins than anything sitting comfortably on terrestrial radio. It’s clear in the first few bars of “All the Trouble,” the opening track of The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone, that something mysterious – and something tempestuous – is brewing inside of Lee Ann Womack. With Moore overseeing a bulk of the production, Slowheart is strikingly stripped-down while still ringing arena-friendly, and finds a vulnerable artist never content to stay in one place for long.
But it all works for Moore on Slowheart, his third record, which rejects current country trends in favor of a raw, rollicking Southern-rock journey that doesn’t depict him as anything but an adult man with a weakness for love (or a little casual sex, on the deliciously naughty “I’ve Been Around,”), a tentative heart (the aching, Motown croon of “Try Again”) and an allegiance to music above all else (the album’s stunning live-to-tape closer, “Guitar Man”). And because of it, the genre has had trouble figuring out exactly where to land him, despite a fan base that is quickly reaching an Eric Church-level of dedication. Kip Moore’s always been one of Music Row’s most defiant ones: insistent on recording his own songs, unwilling to keep his opinions silent and unable to play by the rules. “Life is a record, better cut your groove.” Unlike the genre’s current class of slick gentlemen, Worsham’s unafraid to show that he’s not perfect. “When the needle drops down, what you gonna do?” he sings on “Cut Your Groove,” asking anyone who is listening, but himself, too. Beginning of Things is less about the starting line as it is about the journey, following through Worsham’s process of self-doubt and discovery, and taking stock of his wounds – specifically, the open gashes left from some crushed music industry dreams.
What it says is that Worsham, leading contender in the pool of Nashville’s most underappreciated artists and instrumentalists, is able to meld humor and lightness (through tracks about forgotten britches and wobbly drunken escapades) with introspective, inspirational odes to paving your own way. It speaks volumes about Charlie Worsham that his sophomore album, Beginning of Things, kicks off with 14 goofy seconds of Roger Miller honky-tonk called “Pants,” and then leaps immediately into “Please People Please,” perhaps one of the more sophisticated and mature modern country songs this year.
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