Amber Digby – Music From The Honky Tonks
Sure, her 23-year-old voice is still a tad thin in spots, and like many youthful (and elderly) greats, she has a tendency to sometimes overemote when more finesse would do. But if there’s a more promising hard-country singer on the horizon than Amber Digby, I’ve been kept in the dark.
Lord knows she has the pedigree. Her father Dennis was Loretta Lynn’s bassist for twenty years, mom Dee Gee was Connie Smith’s harmony singer for seven, uncle Darrell McCall is one of the reigning kings of the shuffle, and stepdad Dickie Overby is indie Texas’ MVP on steel guitar. Overby, appropriately enough, is given the lion’s share of solo space on this disc by producer Justin Trevino, whose own band provides most of the dancehall backing.
Digby herself shows plenty of poise in her phrasing and timing in this set of mostly obscure ’60s and early ’70s country, which leans heaviest on Lynn and Smith for both songs and inspiration. The only new material is Overby’s superb “Three Years”, but that won’t matter when you hear Digby sauce and throb her way through Smith’s opening “Heart I’m Ashamed Of You” and Wynn Stewart’s “If You See My Baby”. All’s she’s gotta do is act natch’erly, and there’s every reason to believe the best is yet to come.