Single White Female - Wright, Chely (CD 1999)

Release Date (CD): 1999
Genre: Country & Western
Label: Atlantic Records
Number of Discs: (1)

My wife has often asked me what I see in Country & Western music and I have struggled to come up with an answer. I started listening to the genre of music around the time I started writing poetry in earnest. It was an emotionally traumatic period in my life, and I think I turned to Country music because it has a human message I could, and can relate to, at a very deep level. Country music was, and still does, move me in ways only classical and R&B music has been able to do in the past And so I listen, and as I listen I love it more and more.

The first thing you notice about C&W diva Chely Wright is how attractive she is; then comes the music. I bought Single White Female (1999) after seeing the videos for the title track of the album, Single White Female and the third track, It Was, on the cable television C&W channel GAC. I had never heard of Chely Wright before seeing the video s, and I purchased the CD on the strength of these two songs. At first listen these were the only songs I liked, but after several plays in which I paid closer attention to voice, music, and lyrics, I am happy to report that Single White Female is a keeper!

Kansas City, Missouri born Chely Wright s voice really has no distinguishable feature other than its sometimes ringing, but pleasant twang. But, what she lacks in range she makes up for in heart and soul. Chely comes across as genuine and her voice pulls you into the songs and makes you care and believe in the story being portrayed by the lyrics and music! If you have seen the video for It Was you know what I mean. Were those real tears Chely was crying?

Single White Female is filled with a good mixture of fast and slow tracks, and I think track No. 1 Single White Female, track No. 3 It Was, track No. 4 Unknown, and track No. 10 Why Do I Still Want You are the best the CD has to offer. Track No. 2 She Went Out For Cigarettes, and track No. 7 Pickett Fences both deserve honorable mention.

Ms. Wright wrote Pickett Fences and one has to wonder about the meaning of this song. Is it championing her singleness, or regretting past decisions and hoping for what we all aspire to: a safe harbor to call home with someone to love and worry about us? Taken together with Unknown a sad, haunting track that could be about any one of us, it makes you wonder what is on Chely s mind when she takes voice to mike. Read the chorus and you be the judge:

Partial Lyrics Unknown; Copyright 1999, All rights reserved.

I don t want to be unknown.
The little thing that make me who I am.
I need to share.
I need to know that someone cares.

That I drink coffee Black.
That I sing when I drive.
That I sleep with the radio on.
More than anything.
I don t want to be unknown.

The last track on Single White Female, Why Do I Still Want You is as beautiful for the lyric and voice as it is for the music, especially at the closing 30 seconds of the song. Chely s voice takes on a quite twangy quality that is not at all unpleasant to the ear, and the message is one of love lost, and with it faith in the one above. The fiddle play throughout the song is haunting and soul touching in its play, and the fiddle/guitar solo at the close of the song will have you listening to just it time after time, so sweet and pure is the sound (I love this instrument!).

Single White Female: it took me a little while warm up to the album, but once I did I was hooked. This album was the first commercial success for Ms. Write; we can only hop she see more success in the future.

Track Listing:

1. Single White Female
2. She Went Out for Cigarettes
3. It Was
4. Unknown
5. The Love That We Lost
6. The Fire
7. Picket Fences
8. Some Kind of Somethin
9. Rubbin It In
10. Why Do I Still Want You?