专辑简介

Texas songbird Myra Rolen has been making quite a name for herself among traditional country fans in the last couple of years and her latest, Dancing Your Memory Away, really cements her as a singer with which to be reckoned. With Justin Trevino on production duties, some terrific new songs mixed with a splattering of classic honky tonkers, and help from the McCall family (all of them) Myra Rolen really has excelled herself. Not only that, but her vocals show a new maturity and are consistently spot-on. To say this is the standard Texas dancehall fare of shuffles and classic country we’ve come to expect from Justin Trevino doesn’t really do it justice. Even the familiar Tell Me I’m Crazy

benefits from some stunning steel guitar and Rolen reaching low notes I don’t think she’s hit before. Throughout the record the fiddle hooks of Hank Singer are inspired, and I loved the arrangement on Vince Gill’s If I Didn’t Have You In My World. Even better though, and the standout track for me, is He Still Loves Her. Written by Mona McCall, it features what must be about the saddest fiddle I’ve ever heard and is a fantastic song with a similar theme to She Thinks I Still Care but from the perspective of a new love. Meanwhile, Mona’s daughter Guyanne McCall (Dannhiem) has provided nearly all the harmony vocals and written the bluesy Let It Rain as well as joining Rolen on a couple of numbers, while Darrell McCall’s wonderful The Marionette is revisited. Although never a hit for Darrell the song

has rightfully become recognised as a classic down Texas way and McCall provides restrained background vocals here. There are a couple of fullblown duets with Justin Trevino in the classic country style: Cheatin’ Overtime and Different Arrangement, two of several songs by Peggy Foreman, who was a singer and wrote a lot of songs for Conway Twitty. She penned the 1977 #1 Out Of My Head And Back In Bed for Lorretta Lynn and then signed with Conway Twitty on MCA Label in the mid 1970s. Twitty recorded her Yours To Hurt Tomorrow and her own debut single was The Danger Zone. I’ll Be A Lady Tommorow was recorded by Connie Cato and her other two songs here: Cheatin Overtime and Different Arrangement were never released. These sound very

much like the undiscovered 60s/70s classics they are. Among the covers is also a timely re-working of Lynn Anderson’s That’s A No No (obviously recorded some time before Anderson’s recent demise), and Johnnie Wright’s oft-recorded Walkin’ Talkin’ Cryin’ Barely Beating Broken Heart that was revisited notably by Highway 101. Throughout the album Myra Rolen doesn’t put a foot wrong. She has found some fabulous new songs and undiscovered gems, the covers aren’t too well worn, her vocals are pure and strong, and Trevino has done some of his best work production-wise. As Texas dancehall albums go, this one is perfect in my book.