Its a tale you can almost hear Garrison Keillor tell: Small-town Minnesota girl strikes out for the bright lights of Minneapolis, leaving folks back home to cluck and shake their heads. You heard about the Thompson girl? Yah, shes singing in a country-western band down there in the cities.
In fact, thats pretty much Dana Thompsons story. She grew up in Hibbing, made her way to the Twin Cities, and has spent years singing and playing in bar bands. To make the analogy even more apt, her solo debut was tracked by engineer Jason (Son of Garrison) Keillor.
Ox draws on the talents of a gang of other recognizables among them Jessy Greene, Eric Heywood, Dave Boquist, Robert McCreedy, and members of Bellwether and the Mason Jennings Band. Their playing perfectly underscores Thompsons songs from the rootsy rollick of Climb Out to the warm, enveloping ballad Straight Lines .
Thompson delivers these love songs, anti-love songs, hesitating love songs and lullabies in a voice thats slightly girlish, with a well-scrubbed Kelly Willis quality and a hint of Iris DeMents tangy twang. And though her vocals seem too clean in spots shes too chipper to sell the line You have no idea what kind of life Ive had, for example elsewhere she matches mood and meaning perfectly, nailing the nervousness implicit in More And More by handling every word as gently as if it might break.
Tell the folks back home not to worry. Ox may not be strong or good-looking, but its certainly above average.