Irene Kelley – Thunderbird

There’s an astonishingly high number of perfect country music gems — tightly constructed, lyrically and emotionally direct, simply and elegantly rendered — on Nashville singer-songwriter Irene Kelley’s second album. If Music Row’s producers are as smart as they think they are, you’ll be hearing them someday. Alan Jackson’s fine reading of her “I’m A Little Bluer Than That” a couple of years ago offers some hope that it might actually happen, though it sadly seems unlikely that Kelley herself will ever receive the budgets, distribution, promotion and support her music deserves.

Working with co-producer and multi-instrumentalist Scott Neubert, plus a crew of musicians with one foot on the Row and one in the city’s roots community, Kelley has crafted a fine album that reflects country music tradition without being a slave to it. There are echoes of Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell (who sings harmony on the aching “If I Had Any Strength At All”, co-written with Mark Irwin), Claire Lynch (whose harmonies are scattered through the CD), et al. — in short, artists whose work reflects an awareness of modern sounds and substance while clinging to the genre’s enduring simplicity and depth.

Yet Kelley’s personal stamp is unmistakable, especially in the profound, heartbreaking maturity of the closing “I Pray”. Written with Billy Yates, it offers a wish for a departing love’s happiness and growth with an enviable generosity of spirit unmarred by a single false note.