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Eilen Jewell - Letters From Sinners & Strangers
Sunday, July 13, 2008
It’s easy to fall in love with Eilen Jewell the very first time you hear her. By Martin Jones.
Eilen Jewell
Letters From Sinners & Strangers
Signature Sounds/Shock
It’s easy to fall in love with Eilen Jewell the very first time you hear her. It’s as if she’s smiled straight into your eyes, taken your hand and sat you down next to her with the promise of an entertaining story.
I think it’s because the Idaho-born, Boston-based roots singer sounds like she’s having fun with her music – always enjoying herself but not at the expense of musical quality. There’s a sass and sway to the songs on this, her second album, but without any affectation.
Jewell’s voice is sweet and pure, with a little jazzy vibrato thrown in for old-timey measure here and there, and sounds as though it’s being sung through a grin. In that sense, though the instrumentation (including clarinet!) on this Western swing flavoured is old-fashioned, Jewell adds a contemporary spark with her personality. In that sense she reminds me of one of my favourite current artists Devon Sproule.
The best thing is, it all sounds effortless. Letters From Sinners & Strangers leaps to life with the jaunty spring in the step of ‘Rich Man’s World’, Jewell’s voice immediately compelling over the walking bass, sawing fiddles and finger-picked lektric git-tar. You can feel the song lifting you onto the feet by your ears in a matter of seconds.
Much of the album is of such musical spirit – speaking of which, three tracks in ‘High Shelf Booze’ sways as though intoxicated and fixing to get more so, a classic beating the blues with booze slurr-along. Such little tales sparkle with personality throughout. The very next track, ‘Thanks A Lot’, runs with the love-gone-bad theme, a sonically sweet but sentimentally sour saunter that will send you deeper into that bottle of choice.
After which you wash up on the oh-so-hot-sidewalk-swing of ‘Heartache Boulevard’ (back on your feet, as Jewell orders “pour me a round at the bar and turn up that steel guitar!”). If you don’t have any heartache, my advice is get yourself some – you’re never going to have a better time getting over it than with Jewell as your swinging, swigging mentor.