Brennen Leigh - "Ain't Through Honky Tonkin' Yet", the best country album of the month

Basically, Brennen Leigh is a genius who can do no wrong as far as I am concerned. She is a serious singer-songwriter, a quirky folksy singer-songwriter, singing Western Swing, bluegrass, traditional country, or, as she sharpens focuses on here, some old school country and honky tonk awash with steel guitar. She can literally do it all and run rings around most of her contemporaries while she's about it with her songwriting.

And things don't get much more traditionally old-school than Every Time I Do which has the cooing BVs of vintage countrypolitan at its Patsy Cline-esque finest. It also happens to credit Noel McKay and Erin Enderlin alongside Brennen on the writing credits.

Tessy Lou Williams' self-titled release from 2020 has long been a big personal favourite and it was a delight to find the song she and Leigh wrote together, Somebody's Drinking About You, included here in a less lush, rather more raw incarnation.

With a melody to die for, it is the highlight I had hoped it would be, even if Chris Scrugg's production is a different animal to that of Jerry Salley on the Tessy Lou recording.

The title track is every inch the honky tonker implied by the title (as is The Bar Should Say Thanks) and owes much to some of those early Connie Smith smashes but whilst the album is firmly rooted in vintage country and Leigh admits to being a little obsessed about “the real Nashville of '67-'68", it isn't all honky tonkers, and it doesn't sound like a retro experiment by somebody determined to remain analogue in a digital world. Extra credibility is added by guests like Marty Stuart and Rodney Crowell and it’s fresh, acceptable to a myriad of fans who appreciate real country whether it's the distinctive 70s fiddle-led jauntiness of the opening Running Out Of Hope, Arkansas or the darker and timeless The Red Flags You Were Waving on which Leigh reflects with hindsight that maybe a particular relationship might have been a mistake. It serves as a warning to all us women out there.

Mississippi Rendezvous is gorgeous and filled with the kind of gentle picking one might have found on a Jimmy Webb number while Throwing Away A Precious Jewel owes more to Appalachia than to Austin in its sound. Truckin' songs by female artists are rare but Brennen Leigh takes the wheel of the 18-wheeler and steers it along the highway and delivers some wonderful lyrics like “in pearls and kitten heels/she slams that hammer down on 18 wheels/a Red Sovine blastin' everlastin' how I'd like to be..." on Carole With An E.

The closing track, You Turned Into A Dragon, may owe slightly more to Buck's Made In Japan in it's construction than probably was intended, but its tale of a questionable tattoo choice and a questionable relationship choice is loaded with a similar bitterness to The Red Flags You Were Waving.