My Own Biggest Fan

Don’t blame him for stealing me, you let him.
And where your love stopped, he went a little bit farther.
You changed so much, I was more at ease with a stranger.
But it wasn’t hard, our love was already in danger.

When I bought this album, I assumed by the slick design and the fact that Sammi Smith looked African American (she is not, as you can see by this Google images search) on the cover, that I was buying a soul album. I was in fact buying a little known album by one of the few women welcome in the “outlaw country” genre. I am not the biggest country fan, but I LOVE Cash, Nelson, Kristofferson, Jennings, Cline, Jones, etc. Being surprised with this type of country is not unwelcome.

I don’t know who’s writing the songs on this album. From what I can figure, she is most well known as the voice for Kris Kristofferson’s Help Me Make It Through The Night. (which I’ve never heard — probably) If she is writing these songs, all the better, if she is delivering songs she did not write, any songwriter would be hard pressed to find a more perfect vehicle. If you are not a fan of outlaw country, then you will find nothing here to make you a fan… maybe. (I’d be tickled to find someone who was given a new appreciation for this music after hearing this album) But!… (and PLEASE don’t think that I’m being derisive when I say this) there is much here for those that dissect feminist poetry. In Why Do You Do Me Like You Do she describes a tragic domestic violence situation, and makes it so real and emotional within a three minute country song it’s hard to take. In Foxy Dan, she is the vivacious young minx (or at least that’s how I imagine this character), seduced by a dangerous, charismatic gangster. There are themes within each tune that can resonate for young women and seduce young men or even break the heart of either sex — over and over.

My only real fault with the album is that twice Ring Of Fire is evoked as an embarassingly obvious melodic influence on the songs (and once I heard something uncomfortably close to the beginning of Harper Valley PTA). At the time, there were probably much more blatant lifting of melodies, so I guess I can forgive this transgression. Truly, the good deeds outweigh the sins in this case.

Verdict: Recommended for fans of the genre. No numerical rating because if this intrigues you at all, you should just seek it out and make up your own mind. That’s what this music is all about.