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What is the meaning of country music?
80-year-old singer-songwriter, “I always believed it was the crying of the heart” Connie Smith In a recent video call from his Nashville office, he said he was decorated with the distinctive palette he wore on stage. Framed by black walls and purple tufted furniture, she said, “I understand that I am living the song, not that I am living it. I have lived long enough to know the heartache and joy.”
Since Smith’s groundbreaking success “Once a day” Top of the Billboard For eight weeks in 1964, he toured the country chart with four marriages, five children, 53 studio albums and numerous record labels. Partly due to a semi-retirement in the 1980s, she isn’t necessarily a household name, but is regularly compared to Patsy Cline’s for her contralto singing, strength, and emotional resonance. Smith similarly expresses a distinct feeling that vulnerability does not mean weakness.
“She can sing a sad song, but she never sounded like a victim,” country singer Lee Ann Womack, a longtime fan, said in an interview. “She always sounded like she could kick her ass.”
On Friday, Smith will release 54, “The Cry of the Heart,” his first secular record in nearly a decade after making his debut for the independent label Fat Possum and intermittent gospel. While country music is no stranger to a comeback, many of the genre’s leading names have been revived since the 1990s. studio wizards and enthusiasm of the younger generation. But “The Cry of the Heart” takes a different route, where resurrection does not mean reinvention: It was produced by country musician Marty Stuart, 63, whom Smith married in 1997. The soft piano chords, steel guitars, and rich analog quality of the album Recall Smith’s ’60s-era recordings, a pattern known as the “Connie Smith Sound.”
“Connie is the biggest outlaw,” Stuart said in an interview. “Most people’s definition is to be drunk, to be crazy, to act stupid. His version is up to your guns. Be what you are at any cost.”
Smith’s fierce individualism sprouted from a solid foundation. “Because I was born into an alcoholic family, I was born a warrior,” he said. Raised in Southern Ohio by his mother, Wilma Lily, and step-father, Thomas Clark, Smith came of age among 14 siblings and half-siblings. His stepfather played the mandolin in square dances and his three sisters sang.
“I tried to sing with them but he would fire me for messing things up trying to learn harmony,” she said. The family tuned their battery-operated radio to broadcasts from the Grand Ole Opry, and Smith fell in love with the music of Kitty Wells and the Louvin Brothers.
Smith made his stage debut at a local square dance in his senior year of high school, where he earned $3 for a cover of the pop standard “My Happiness.” A few years later, in August 1963, he entered a talent show at Frontier Ranch, a former country music park near Columbus, Ohio, and won to an enthusiastic rendition of Jean Shepard’s “I Thought of You.” He won five silver dollars and a slot at the Grand Ole Opry opening for singer-songwriter Bill Anderson. With his help, Smith signed a recording contract with Chet Atkins’ RCA Victor in June the following year. Backed by “The Threshold”, both written by Anderson, the top 45 followed “Once a Day” at the label’s famed Studio B on July 16.
Its immediate success was stunning. “Someone would pull me by my arm and someone else by the other arm,” Smith said of a DJ convention he attended in the midst of a sudden burst of fame. The atmosphere was new to her and a little stressful, but as she was going back and forth between meetings, she saw a man coming down the hall. “She was singing, almost without knowing who she was” – she lowered her voice sarcastically – ‘Once daaay/Looong all day.’” It was George Jones. Soon after, another great, Loretta Lynn, began offering her advice from woman to woman.
“He told me who to trust and whom not to trust, where to go and where not to go,” Smith said.
Over the years, Smith has repaid the favor and served as a beacon for the younger generation of women in the industry. “She’s one of those performers who’s always been great,” country singer Tanya Tucker said in an interview. “It never goes out of style.”
Smith said the inspiration for “The Cry of the Heart” came when they heard “I Just Don’t Believe Me Anymore,” a new song written by him and Stuart’s longtime collaborator Dallas Frazier and famous for similar country hits. “Elvira” and “The Only Thing I Can Offer You (Mine).” “One of my favorite country songs,” Smith said. “I said to Marty, ‘I have to record this’.”
Hargus Robbins, a successful pianist known as Pig, who has played Smith’s debut single, new album, and countless sessions in between, said Smith came into the studio well-prepared. “He knows his songs when he comes in,” she said. He doesn’t have to confuse the melody or how he wants to express them. He said that after recording with Cline, he understood firsthand the comparisons between the two artists. “They’re both strong-willed people,” he added. “They know what they want and expect to get it.”
The opening song of the new album, “A Million and One,” recalls a classic Smith torch song, and the singer details the number of tears she has cried for an imaginary lover (“One million and one tear/One million and two”). Smith and Stuart co-wrote “Here Comes My Baby Again” This blends Smith’s sensibility with her husband’s love of rock ‘n’ roll on a tour bus. More recently, “Jesus, Take a Hold” by Merle Haggard is a Smith song. first recorded In the early 70’s. This time, he stepped back to highlight Smith’s passionate voice.
“It is as relevant today as it was back then, or even more so,” he said.
The pending release of the album is energizing for Smith, but he didn’t nearly live to see it. One Sunday night in February, Stuart took him to the emergency room near their home in Hendersonville, Tenn., and Smith was diagnosed with Covid-19. He had sepsis and pneumonia in each lung. The couple was frightened, but Smith’s fighting instinct kicked in.
“The doctor stuck his head in the door and said, ‘If your heart stops, do you want to be resurrected?’ he said. “I said absolutely. I’m not going to be a Covid statistic. That’s not the way I want to go out.”
To show his stubbornness, he remembered one of his first jobs: working in the high school office. She said she wanted her peers to bend the rules, but wasn’t soft. “I’ve always felt this way in my life,” he said. “I made many mistakes but at the same time I tried my best to do the right thing.”
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