[rating=8.00]
On first listen, Amy Ray’s Goodnight Tender sounds like a balmy summer evening in Texas; it’s a sultry, slow-as-molasses, quintessentially country album. But don’t let all the lazy guitar slides and twang fool you. Behind the album’s country façade, Ray’s folk rock roots are on full display. Featuring twelve tracks written across Ray’s career and recorded live at Echo Mountain recording studio in North Carolina, Goodnight Tender is a gutsy, creative, and complete effort that showcases a developed and mature sound, honest, meaningful lyrics, and a more personal side of Ray that will undoubtedly please her followers and open their ears to new realms of music.
Although known for her gritty, hard-hitting folk rock music as well as her work with Emily Saliers in the Indigo Girls, in Goodnight Tender Ray delves into a completely genre new for her and a style that focuses the attention on her voice. Throughout much of Ray’s solo career, her gravelly vocals have existed in tandem with her band, seeking to add to the music rather than step into the spotlight. From the start of “Hunter’s Prayer,” Goodnight Tender’s opening track, it is obvious that this album is different. Ray’s distinctive vocals open the song, immediately followed by the strum of a guitar and a violin. Like most of the songs on Goodnight Tender, the pace is slow and leisurely, and Ray’s versatile voice shines while truly embracing the country-western sound. As most of the record’s songs were written over an extended period of time, Goodnight Tender also offers listeners a mature sound. Ray has clearly perfected these songs before recording them, and even brought in a number of collaborators familiar with the country genre to record, including the likes of Kelly Hogan, Phil and Brad Cook, Heather McEntire, and Justin Vernon.
The title track, “Goodnight Tender,” also perfectly captures the essence of the entire album. The song starts with a drowsy descending guitar riff, giving the song the feel of a Western lullaby or campfire song. Ray’s vocals, turned up well above the music, take center stage as she sings about “coyotes yippee yi yaying” and the dreams of her true love. Albeit lonely, the song conveys in four minutes that Goodnight Tender is meant to be a true country album, a departure from Ray’s edgy folk rock in favor of slower, more personal tunes that give Ray the opportunity to focus and reflect on her own life.
Nevertheless, in spite of the slow, twangy melodies, Goodnight Tender has all the marks of a classic Amy Ray folk album. Above melodies that are understated yet effective, Ray sings lyrics that tell stories and convey emotion far better than any run-of-the-mill country record could. In “Oyster and Pearl,” one of the highlight tracks of Goodnight Tender, Ray takes the perspective of a garfish to create a metaphor about her own self. Throughout the song, Ray sings lines like, “I been so long in this world, What I got left is all I need now,” and “You want me to be the oyster that has the pearl…But there ain’t nothing like that in this girl,” which express her maturity and experience, and paint her as a rugged, secure, and proud woman. “Time Zone” tells the story of a sad end to a relationship with a lover that has come to a sad end, with Ray singing, “Baby I’m in your time zone now but I’m calling to let you down…You and me got the same setting sun.” Throughout Goodnight Tender, Ray uses imagery of nature as metaphors to tell her stories, giving the album a rich lyrical depth that is pronounced by the prevalence of Ray’s voice.
The biggest obstacle Goodnight Tender may face is that it is, in fact, a country music album. For those who have come to admire Ray for her innovative and provocative folk rock, at first this record may be difficult to digest. The pace of Goodnight Tender is far slower than Ray’s other albums like Stag, and her voice is front and center, perhaps more than ever in her solo work. The album is certainly an acquired taste, but listeners both familiar and unfamiliar with Ray’s work can come to appreciate the creativity and unconventionality Goodnight Tender. The album’s best tracks tell stories rooted in folk, and the prevalence of Ray’s vocals pair well with the twangy, country-western riffs and melodies to give the album a warm and welcoming feel.
Like Amy Ray herself, Goodnight Tender is steady and unwavering. The album is a complete work from beginning to end, with melodies that complement Ray’s vocals and give her the opportunity to tell tales from all walks of life. It’s a country album like you’ve never heard country before, and a work closely bound to Ray’s folk repertoire that stands on its own, like a lone cowboy riding into the sunset.
