Mark Chesnutt: Outlaw
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The best cover albums have an air of inevitability about them: you put a great singer with great songs and of course you’re going to get magic. But that’s not always the case. Sometimes you match a great singer with songs he or she genuinely loves and end up with a project that’s very personally meaningful to the artist and his or her most devoted fans but of limited interest from a purely musical standpoint.

Such is the case with Outlaw, a collection of a dozen songs, half of which were popularly recorded by Waylon Jennings. Another two were not-as-popularly recorded by him, so the only four songs that Chesnutt couldn’t possibly have discovered through Waylon are Willie Nelson’s “Bloody Mary Morning,” David Allan Coe’s “Time Off For Bad Behavior,” and the Hank Jr. covers “Country State of Mind” and “Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound.” If you liked the songs then, you’ll like them now, though you probably won’t find much reason to return to the new versions repeatedly. Only the duet with Amber Digby on “A Couple More Years” leaves much of an impression.

In his 1997 book Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity, late music scholar Richard Peterson wrote that “ironically, even the most faithful attempt to preserve authenticity works to dissipate it because to copy the authentic creates what is necessarily inauthentic.” That’s the crux of Chesnutt’s problem: He sounds like he’s channeling past performances of these songs rather than tapping into the core emotions that made those earlier readings so potent. He’s an expert mimic, mastering Waylon’s phrasing and holding notes like Hank Jr., but he brings precious little of himself to the party. There’s not much that’s ‘outlaw’ about so faithfully recreating a decades-old sound, though producer Pete Anderson does add some nice production touches along the way.

This isn’t the first tribute album to fail to answer the question of why anyone shouldn’t just listen to the originals instead, but it is a disappointing example because the idea of a Chesnutt outlaw album seemed so promising. These covers probably sound great sprinkled throughout his live shows, but they make for a pretty lifeless album taken together.

Ashley Ray: Ashley Ray
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Someday, someone will let Ashley Ray release a full album. The Kansas-bred singer/songwriter first appeared with a four-song digital EP on Capitol Nashville in 2007. At some point, she moved over to Universal South, then survived the merger with Show Dog to release this new five-song EP on Show Dog Universal. Soundwise, it’s another thick-yet-effective Jay Joyce production, similar in texture to the producer’s previous work with Eric Church.

Although it’s easy to wish for more restrained backing, Ray’s voice actually works pretty well in this setting: She’s got a hard twang with a nice cry at the top end that cuts right through the clutter, reverb and all.

Joyce and Ray cowrote (with Jeremy Spillman) the two tracks that bookend the EP, Miranda-style stompers “My Kind of Mistake,” a carryover from the now unavailable Capitol EP, and “Loved By You.” In between, we get “This Time Around,” a pleasant but nonessential Cody Canada/Randy Rogers collaboration previously recorded by the respective bands of both writers. There’s also lead single “Dirt Cheap,” a Luke Bryan/Dallas Davidson/Hillary Lindsey cowrite, with a performance that suggests Ray would do well to spend a bit more time in ballad territory on future outings. (The Texas connection continues with harmony support from the Eli Young Band’s Mike Eli.) Best of all is the Lori McKenna gem “Figured It Out,” with lyrics just a touch smarter than anything else here and a chorus that opens wide with the singer’s dawning awareness of her own inherent worth, apart from the relationships that she previously allowed to define her.

All told, this is rocking contemporary country with a surer sense of itself than most of what we’re bound to hear from up-and-coming acts in 2010. It’d be interesting to see what Ray could do over the course of a full album, if major labels are still releasing those on acts that aren’t already proven sellers.

Chely Wright: Lifted Off The Ground

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Lifted off the Ground, is a wry elegy titled “Notes To The Coroner,” sung from the perspective of a woman who’s recently expired. It begins with a half-assed apology to those she’s left behind: “I hope I haven’t been lyin’ here long,” she sings, “I’d say ‘I told you so’ but I’m long gone.” Wright, in her cool, matter-of-fact manner, describes her untimely–though not unexpected–demise. The self-prescribed cause of death: a broken heart born out of a toxic love affair.

On Lifted, Wright goes public with her own private hell. During much of a five-year hiatus from the music business, Wright–”a big ball of pain and pajamas” as she puts it on “Notes”–holed up inside her New York City apartment as she dealt with a long-term depression. Urged on by friend and mentor Rodney Crowell, she turned her personal tumult into a candid song cycle that shows just how she’s blossomed into a first-rate singer-songwriter.

Such artistic growth comes as a welcome surprise. A pretty brunette with a big voice, Wright seemed to be the conventional country music babe upon her debut. Even People Magazine took notice, naming her to its 50 Most Beautiful People list. But as Wright hovered around the Faith-Shania axis in the late 90s, she carried a different tune than her pretty peers, trending towards more quirky fare that paid little heed to Nashville formulas. Of course, she remained a mere blip on country radio’s radar, despite scoring a #1 hit with 1999’s “Single White Female.”

After a series of fits and starts, Wright parted ways with her label and went indie. On 2005’s The Metropolitan Hotel, she explored a more organic style married to her pensive stories of loss and longing. Liftedfinds her fully invested in this new vision, with arrangements that beautifully combine folk, pop and country. It covers the same musical and emotional terrain as fellow Music Row rejects Mary Chapin Carpenter and Rosanne Cash. Wright’s confessional, cut-to-the-bone songs are the work of a misguided soul; she zeroes in on their stark essence with a humid alto that’s both smart and sexy.

On the album’s opening cut, “Broken,” Wright begs to an untrusting lover: “Why can’t you just believe in me?” These matters of faith are the focus of Lfited, from the dreamy, psychedelic “Snow Globe” to the hushed, intimate closer “Shadows of Doubt.” Wright never minces words or wastes melodies. Take “Damn Liar,” a primal, lite-metal ballad that smolders with white-hot anger. Not one to shy away from pain or profanity, she issues a crude rebuke to her beloved: “Fuckin’ liar, that’s what you are.” The Alanis-like “Object Of Your Rejection” is a similarly cynical take on romance, aimed at a nasty ex who “can get away with treating people like shit.”

Obscenities aside, the language on Lifted is swift and sure and sounds like a desperate cry for freedom. On “That Train,” a smooth, wistful tune that chugs along to a chicka-boom rhythm, she yearns for a one-way trip down a lonesome track. The radiant pop-gospel number, “Heavenly Days,” is another winner, as Wright dips into her lower register to give thanks to life’s liberations. With Lifted, a more complex, complete album than she’s ever recorded, Wright has, for once, found some release.