Audio By Carbonatix
It’s not hard to adore Terri Hendrix if one happens to be a fan of the best in singer-songwriters. The themes and words within her open-ended, post-folk music are rich with humanity, spirit, and inspiration, without ever verging into maudlin silliness. And she keeps getting better and better, each album even more assured and rich with musical imagination. It’s kinda like watching your favorite li’l sister come into her own — a satisfying process indeed.
So even if Hendrix’s fourth album is called Places In Between, it’s right on the mark in terms of where her ever-growing talent and ability should be headed, the natural next giant step from her last studio set, Wilory Farm. This time out, she’s changed her label name from Tycoon Cowgirl to Wilory Records, a significant indication that she is ascending from being a Texas artist, with the requisite rootsiness, to something greater. If this album were on a major label, with the right grease behind it, I imagine it would find a welcoming home on Triple A radio (Adult Album Alternative), right alongside Patty Griffin and Sheryl Crow and Ani DiFranco. There are few things as invigorating for a fan than to see the artist fulfilling the potential one hears. And the evidence is all over Places In Between.
Case in point: the song “Invisible Girl,” which has been a staple of her live shows for some time. For starters, it’s an uncomfortable subject: a woman getting dumped in a bar by her boyfriend for another gal — her best friend, in fact. “Invisible Girl” tackles the dilemma with humor and confidence. And having heard the song more than a few times when she’s played it live, it nonetheless sounds utterly new here. The same goes for another tune on the new CD that’s also an oldie to her fans, “Eagles,” which also gloriously soars above its former existence. Usually, people are better than their albums when they perform, but with this disc, even her familiar songs scale new heights. And the newer ones display greater eloquence and musicality than anything that’s come before.
Due credit goes to her producer and creative partner Lloyd Maines, whose work with Hendrix exhibits a burgeoning creativity and stylistic adventurousness that is missing on so many of the ho-hum albums Maines has recently produced for far too many mediocre acts. But this one’s good enough to make one forgive Maines for producing Texas dancehall dreck like Pat Green’s Carry On. (And let the letter-writing commence.) This is a disc full of imagination, laced with some musical daring. As I’ve said before of Hendrix, here’s one artist of whom we can all say some day: We knew her when… If I’d been asked to title this disc, I’d have called it Places Above And Beyond, because the growth and expanding reach is evident in every song.
One expects such surging artistic confidence will also be reflected onstage, which is, after all, where Hendrix has groomed her talent. Her abilities are now road-tested and tuned, and she’s firing on all pistons, running full-out toward the possible national stardom she can earn. My only question on Places In Between is her serious facial expression on the cover, but maybe that’s because she has a smile that could light up the Great White Way. No matter. Her smile should be in abundance at her record release gig this weekend, along with some delightful and heart-warming music. What more can one ask of a show? Terri Hendrix performs May 5 at Sons of Hermann Hall. The Groobees open.
Rob Patterson
