Back in 2019 news broke than the legendary queen of Outlaw country Jessi Colter was recording a new album, produced by none other than Margo Price. Since then fans of both women have been waiting for news of the release only to be met with a series of disappointing delays.
We can blame the pandemic for some of the issues but Margo hinted on Twitter that finding a record label to release this album has been fraught with difficulty, no doubt due to ageism and sexism plaguing the industry. Thankfully Appalachia Record Company have agreed to release the album, titled ‘Edge of Forever’ – a collection of songs which prove that being over seventy is no barrier to musical creativity.
Jessi’s last record was an interesting and experimental collection of improvisation interpretations of the Psalms, produced by Lenny Kaye. Prior to that album she’d made a comeback with the 2006 album ‘Out of the Ashes’ written in the aftermath of her second husband Waylon Jennings’s death. Her brilliant memoir An Outlaw & a Lady tells the story of her life in a way that made me believe she had more to say, both musically and personally. After a life in the shadow of famous men it becomes even more significant to find her in her late seventies stepping back into the light on her own terms.
Producer Margo Price encouraged her to make this album happen after hearing some of the unreleased original material that Jessi had been working on. Margo has always had a keen understanding of the legends in the genre and, since her own sound is inspired by the classic sixties and seventies era that Jessi emerged from, they make an absolute dream team. The sound of the record is rooted firmly in that vintage Americana aesthetic, using players from Margo’s own band including her husband Jeremy Ivey.
The title song Standing on the Edge of Forever was the first one Margo heard which convinced her that Jessi should make this album. Here she’s singing of a woman breaking up with her past, moving towards the ‘sunshine’ and hearing the ‘birds overhead’ as her new beginning. The loose, rootsy, groove lets the personality in her voice come through.
Many late career women have faced struggles with the decline and change in their voice – some like Joni Mitchell and Linda Ronstadt have given up recording entirely, Lucinda Williams and Tanya Tucker have embraced the grit and gravel age has given them, others like Dolly and Loretta had to adapt their style to accommodate a new softer fragility. Jessi’s voice is more similar to the latter two, and perhaps that may have been another factor in the struggle to find a record label. Listeners and fans are, hopefully, more open to embracing the reality of what someone actually authentically sounds like. In a voice is a life lived – a true singer is someone who can be themselves to the end.
Jessi describes this album as ‘a love project’, and you can really here that joy on ‘I Wanna be With You’ where Margo joins her for an uplifting moment of pure celebration.
‘Hard on Easy Street’ is a softer ballad, echoing the best of her old music in terms of the classic seventies country style – a nice reminder that a simple idea, well delivered never fails to connect.
You can hear an echo of some of Margo Price’s first album on ‘Lost Love Song’ – a demo song of Waylon’s that Jessi unearthed after his death. The song flows beautifully into ‘Angel in the Fire’ written for Lisa Kristofferson, Kris’s wife, a tribute to the endless emotional work of women behind the scenes in the music industry. Here she is almost in awe of the positivity, the cheerfulness, the divine goodness of the uncomplaining wife. But it’s also a tribute to friendship and finding comfort and strength in shared experiences and sacrifices.
Faith is another strong theme across Jessi’s life and work, but a song like ‘Can’t Nobody Do me Like Jesus’ suggests she can still have a little fun in her worship. The final song on the album ‘Secret Place’ continues her tradition of using the Psalms as musical inspiration, this time with the help of her daughter Jenni Eddy Jennings.
There’s a defiant message in choosing to sing the old song she used to sing with Waylon ‘With or Without You’ on her own. She embraces the message of the song about living on after betrayal and romantic disappointment. On ‘Fine Wine’ she takes this further by writing a new song which honours her own past while also confidently moving forward and embracing the blessings of age. This one feels like she’s starting a new chapter and in fact Jessi actually married for the third time on Valentine’s Day this year. Maybe there’s an album of late life love songs potentially in her future? Now that’s the kind of rebuke to stereotypes about women and ageism that would be wonderful to hear.
When talking about the recording of the album Jessi described the whole experience as ‘a dance’. Get your cowboy boots on and join her and Margo in this gorgeous, twilight waltz. A wonderful return from a legend.
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