Album Review: Melissa Carper, ‘Borned in Ya’
On Borned in Ya, Melissa Carper builds on the musical exploration of her two earlier albums—2021’s Daddy’s Country Gold and 2022’s Ramblin’ Soul—showcasing her striking ability to get to the heart of many musical styles in her songs.
The soul blues “Evil Eva” captures the messiness, regret, and the can’t-live-with-you-can’t-live-without-you of a breakup. Riding along an R&B vibe, complete with recitative and heart-bending lead riffs, it recalls Van & Titus’s classic “Cry Baby Cry.” Waltzing across vast geographical and psychic expanses, the Western swing “Somewhere between Texas and Tennessee,” co-written with Brennen Leigh (Carper’s partner, with Kelly Willis, in Wonder Women of Country), opens with a swinging guitar riff and captures the lives of two musicians living on the road and the moments they share.
“There’ll Be Another One” unfolds cinematically, opening sparsely with Roy Orbison-like guitar strums and then blossoming, thanks to lush string arrangements and cascading piano chords, into an emotionally drenched portrait of a bereft lover drowning in loss, even as others offer well-meaning, though hollow, words that “there’ll be another one.”
The rollicking title track transports us with its scampering Southern Gospel style, replete with the soaring call and response of the ethereal harmony vocal chorus of Kyshona Armstrong, Nickie Conley, and Maureen Murphy; Carper delivers a passionate sermon in song about authenticity, whether it’s in music or in personal life. Carper could easily sing her version of the ‘30s pop standard “That’s My Desire,” with its Gypsy jazz foundations and lush piano, in any jazz lounge, while the jaunty and entertaining “Your Furniture’s Too Nice,” saunters along on a St. Louis-meets-New-Orleans jazz vibe. Carper stretches out luxuriantly on her take on Cole Porter’s classic “Every Time We Say Goodbye,” delivering a beautiful new version of a standard from the Great American Songbook.
Take a listen to any track from Borned in Ya and it’s clear: the swaying rhythms of country, jazz, gospel, and R&B are absolutely “borned” in Melissa Carper. Her vocals leave no doubt she’s a country crooner, but on a track like “That’s My Desire” she rivals jazz great Blossom Dearie.
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Borned in Ya is available HERE
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