Country Music As It Should Be!

For too many years, Kelly Willis toiled around in country music that wasn't very well suited to her style of vocal delivery. With that fabulous voice of hers, she settled for recording the more traditional stuff, only occasionally hitting the mark ("Little Honey," for instance, was a great song), but more often that not her talent was wasted.

Fortunately for Willis, she decided to break free of Nashville (and MCA Records) and decided instead to focus her music in Austin, Texas. That city, a charmingly quaint place where art is taking root, seems to inspire many, and nowhere is that more apparent than on Shawn Colvin's wonderful A FEW SMALL REPAIRS or Kelly Willis' excellent WHAT I DESERVE, an album released on the more independent label Rykodisc.

The sound here might be twang, but it's not a slickly-produced, nasally twang that grates on your nerves like most of the industry-produced "artists" out there. On this delectable gem, we are treated to an earthy, roots-oriented record brimming with passion and gutso.

Willis comes out fighting on "Take Me Down," a great song for a two-step. Here, Willis belts out the lyrics naturally and without pretention. As she delivers the song, a completely singable tune about letting yourself fall for the wrong person, you sense that she feels every word she croons. "I don't believe a word you're saying/But I know the game you're playing/So it's only just for now/I will let you take me down."

The title song follows, and it's a stunner. Filled with longing and heartache, Kelly proclaims, "What I deserve is comfort for this shaking soul," and I can't recall a person in the world who hasn't felt like that at some point or another.

"Not Forgotten You" is a sure-fire winner, bristling with energy and just a little bit or remorse, as Willis finds herself writing to an old flame: "Time flies/And you just know/Time to think about letting go/Times I even forget to be blue/But I have not forgotten/I have not forgotten you." One has to wonder whether this song would have been a big country hit if it had been released by a more prominent label.

Kelly's voice simmers on tracks like "Wrapped" and "Got a Feelin' for Ya," while it ignites on "Heaven Bound" and "Fading Fast." She chooses a few interesting songs to cover as well: alt-folk singer Nick Drake's "Time Has Told Me" and Paul Westerberg's "They're Blind." Her own personal taste in music is obviously very diverse and sophisticated, and it comes across here on her own record.

Working with Shawn Colvin's long-time collaborator John Leventhal on "Fading Fast" and the beautiful "Not Long for This World," which closes the album out on a more somber note, Willis reaps the benefits of Leventhal's precision and skill. They make a great writing team.

A lot of the songs were written by Kelly, and it's great to see such a talented singer who can actually write music to showcase that talent. The production by Dave McNair is poised and dedicated. He lets Kelly's voice do the talking by showcasing it in relatively simple arrangements, never overshadowing her talent with over-baked pretention and pomp.

Willis is a big hit in Austin, the music capital of Texas, and one can't help but hope that the rest of the music industry catches on sometime soon to this spitfire of a talent who is poised on the brink of a major breakthrough. This is a bold, magnificent testament to what happens when a musician sacrifices the promise of stardom for the content and quality of the work itself.

You can't find a lot of country music out there that has such heart and passion, folks, and you can't do much better than Kelly Willis. Take my word for it.

GRADE: A