Audrey Auld Mezera – Texas

If Audrey Auld Mezera weren’t Tasmanian, she’d be Texan. Texas — produced by Gabe Rhodes (son of Kimmie) and featuring members of Jimmy LaFave’s band — is her tribute to the music of that land, and to the Austinites who welcomed her like family.

Mezera’s soulful country voice and narrative songsmithing would suggest she grew up listening to Dwight Yoakam and Loretta Lynn. In fact, though, her upraising in Tasmania and Australia’s outback was steeped in jazz and classical traditions. She toured the dark territory of Bauhaus and the Birthday Party before an art teacher turned her on to the country sounds that became her obsession.

A chance meeting with Australian roots-music patriarch Bill Chambers (father of Kasey) led to some records, and the founding of a label (Reckless) that now distributes Fred Eaglesmith and Mary Gauthier down under. Mezera’s first two solo albums won critical acclaim in Australia and the U.S., not least for her cracked-earth vocals that gleam here and there like broken glass.

While those releases focused inward Texas mostly honors heroes — Woody Guthrie, Harlan Howard, Billy Joe Shaver, her father, and her husband of two years, Daniel Mezera. She also visits a Texas anti-hero by covering Mary Gauthier’s “Karla Faye”. The best cuts are an old-fashioned love song, the happy, loping “Love You Like The Earth” with Kimmie Rhodes singing harmony, and a duet with Chambers titled “One Eye”, about the general goodness of getting by most days, wherever you may be.