Carleigh Nesbit – Come Out of the Kitchen

Our little girl is growing up. Carleigh Nesbit, who it seems just yesterday entered a small studio to record her first album in or around Charlottesville VA, is coming into her own, or maybe has simply Come Out of the Kitchen, though that would be misleading. Come out of surgery, maybe, because Carleigh is working on her doctorate— or on becoming a doctor (technicalities confuse me). That old saying about artists— Don’t give up your day job? She took it to heart. No word on specialty yet— so many to choose from.

That first effort, Flower to a Bee, was released in 2008 and was and is a favorite. The fact that she was new to the studio made little difference in her performance, especially as she had the collective music brain trust of C-ville on whom to rely— Jeff Romano, Charlie Bell, Devon Sproule, Paul Curreri, Stuart Gunter and others. The album is a beauty, a country-rock coup d’etat if you will, for though Nesbit relies on many genres it always come out smooth and has me looking back to country rock’s golden years— the early seventies. (You can read my review of the album here)

Nesbit continues her country-rocking ways with Kitchen, songs similar but more mature in the stead of such beauties as “Anna’s Tambourine” and “Your City Skies.” Indeed, “Rodeo,” which kicks things off, is full testament to the years between albums. Nesbit’s smooth voice floats over a full band sound as good as any gracing any tracks out of Nashville the past few years. There is, in fact, a Pure Prairie League/Michael Dinner sound to both band and song, a sound relying less on twang than feel. I mean, I like twang when it’s done right but…..

Of course, these days country is anything that has a pedal steel in it, though that fits most people’s definition of Americana as well. To be fair, few remember the early days of country rock when bands and artists like The Flying Burrito Brothers and Steve Young and Pure Prairie League and Cowboy and Uncle Jim’s Music and, yes, even those clowns from Los Angeles, The Eagles, were laying down smooth rock with that sweet country edge. Most people back then missed the best of it. Nesbit gives us another chance here.

This is not Modern Country which, as far as I can tell, is nothing but sludge rock anymore. These songs aren’t grist for the mill or fodder for the gun. These songs are personal and if Nesbit knows one thing besides singing it is writing. I point to the aforementioned “Rodeo” as proof, as well as “Kitchen,” which encroaches on Pure Prairie League territory without pushing, and in fact tosses in a whole album of outstanding songs, some light rockers and some feeding the lonesome such as “Ohio” which could rock you to sleep if it didn’t make the heart ache so much. “Water,” the one real rocker on the album, demands to be turned up, followed by “Chemical Reaction,” which is as twang as she gets.   

There is something beyond the music here. I noticed it on her first album, too. A sense of something beneath it all. I hear it in vocal bluegrass when it is done right— a fresh look at life without the encumbrances of the chaotic culture we have become. Life before electronics, before ebooks and the social media and even television. It is in the background, yes, but it is present. A call of a slower life, if not necessarily better. One in which we take the time to get to know one another, in which attitudes toward family and friends do not change on a dime, in which the air is fresh and problems are handled through common sense and an inbred knowledge of what is right. I get it all from Nesbit’s music. That is why I will be ready for the next Carleigh Nesbit album when it comes. In the meantime, I will milk these two for all I can get.