Margo Price | ||
| Allmusic Biography : Margo Price might be something of a throwback, not only styling her country music after the classic sounds of Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, and Emmylou Harris, but also writing like a classic 70s singer/songwriter. She has an eye for details and a knack for narrative that help keep her brand of traditionalism from seeming like nostalgia on her debut, Midwest Farmers Daughter, an album recorded at Sun Studios and released on Jack Whites Third Man Records in 2016. Like White, Price is a Nashville transplant who originally hails from the Midwest. A native of Aledo, Illinois -- a small town near the states western border -- Price grew up singing in church and wound up studying dance and theater while in college. Once she reached the age of 20 in 2003, she decided to drop out and head to Nashville, where she slowly started working at a musical career while working odd jobs. She met a bassist named Jeremy Ivey and soon the two formed the group Buffalo Clover; the pair would later marry. Between 2010 and 2013, Buffalo Clover released three independent albums. Once this band split, Price assembled Margo & the Pricetags, a band with a revolving lineup that sometimes featured future alt-country star Sturgill Simpson. Price financed a solo album she recorded at Sun Studios in 2015 and, after hearing through the Nashville grapevine that Jack White was a fan of hers -- he spotted her at local showcases -- she sent him the album. Impressed, White signed Price to Third Man Records and released the album as Midwest Farmers Daughter in March of 2016 -- the LP garnered nearly unanimous critical accolades. In July 2017, Price released the four-track Weakness EP, whose title track wound up as the first single from her second album, All American Made, which appeared in October of that year. The record featured a guest performance from Willie Nelson on the track "Learning to Lose." | ||
 | Album: 1 of 3 Title: Midwest Farmer’s Daughter Released: 2016-03-25 Tracks: 10 Duration: 40:02 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Hands of Time (06:09) 2 About to Find Out (03:12) 3 Tennessee Song (04:40) 4 Since You Put Me Down (04:52) 5 Four Years of Chances (04:33) 6 This Town Gets Around (02:55) 7 How the Mighty Have Fallen (03:11) 8 Weekender (04:40) 9 Hurtin’ (On the Bottle) (04:12) 10 World’s Greatest Loser (01:33) |
| Midwest Farmer’s Daughter : Allmusic album Review : Midwest Farmers Daughter isnt merely an autobiographical title for the retro country singer/songwriter Margo Price, its a nice tip of the hat to one of her primary inspirations, Loretta Lynn. The connections between the two country singers dont end there. Toward the end of her career, the Coal Miners Daughter wound up collaborating with Jack White for 2004s Van Lear Rose, and Whites Third Man Records provides a launching pad for Price, releasing her self-financed solo debut as-is as Midwest Farmers Daughter. Spare and lean like Loretta in her prime, Price nevertheless writes with the studied precision of a modern Americana songwriter; even when she gets explicitly autobiographical, as she does on the opening "Hands of Time," it doesnt play as confession ripped from the soul, it plays as poetry. Similarly, when she tightens the screws so her song turns into something sleek, it doesnt play as Music City precision, it feels savvy and personal, surprising with its light hint of funk and Prices clear, plaintive, and powerful vocal. This tension between the head and heart, between the country and the city, is what fuels Midwest Farmers Daughter, placing it on a warm, hazy plane that feels simultaneously sophisticated and down-home. Part of this dichotomy is due to Prices singing: she sounds like the Illinois girl that she is, possessing a voice thats pretty, plain, and unadorned, carrying an innocence that cuts against the worldliness of her songs. Her band, though, provides her songs with a genuine honky tonk kick, but even when the album drifts toward the traditional -- as it does on "Hurtin (On the Bottle)" or "Four Years of Chances" -- Prices sensibility is modern, turning these old-fashioned tales of heartbreak, love, loss, and perseverance into something fresh and affecting. | ||
 | Album: 2 of 3 Title: Weakness Released: 2017-07-27 Tracks: 4 Duration: 15:42 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Weakness (02:45) 2 Just Like Love (03:37) 3 Paper Cowboy (06:15) 4 Good Luck (For Ben Eyestone) (03:05) |
 | Album: 3 of 3 Title: All American Made Released: 2017-10-20 Tracks: 12 Duration: 45:50 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Don’t Say It (02:43) 2 Weakness (02:46) 3 A Little Pain (02:55) 4 Learning to Lose (06:19) 5 Pay Gap (03:53) 6 Nowhere Fast (04:07) 7 Cocaine Cowboys (03:26) 8 Wild Women (02:56) 9 Heart of America (03:15) 10 Do Right By Me (03:10) 11 Loner (04:30) 12 All American Made (05:50) |
| All American Made : Allmusic album Review : Margo Price cut her 2016 debut, Midwest Farmers Daughter, on her own dime, hawking everything she and her husband had to record the album at Sun Studio. Its rawness grabbed the attention of Third Man Records, which released the record unadorned. Critics and a cult of fans also found the rough edges appealing, but that ragged immediacy also suggested Price was more of a traditionalist than she actually was, a situation she remedies with 2017s All American Made. Written and recorded in the aftermath of Donald J. Trumps November 2016 election, All American Made doesnt disguise Prices liberal politics -- "Pay Gap" addresses gender inequality among salaries, the title track is a stark bit of protest that reaches its boil thanks to sampled news clips -- which is a shift from the personal vignettes of her debut, and she broadens her musical range, too. Price is particularly drawn to laid-back slow, going so far as to set "Cocaine Cowboys" to a lackadaisical funk beat. She hasnt abandoned country -- the album opens with the rockabilly of "Dont Say It," which is quickly countered by the barroom swing of "Weakness," while Willie Nelson later swings by to sing on "Learning to Lose" -- which means All American Made winds up drawing an expansive portrait of American roots music, one that touches on R&B;, Tex-Mex, girl group pop, spacy indie rock, and even Glen Campbells trippiest moments. Price isnt a dilettante; these disparate styles are unified by a musical and lyrical aesthetic that views American life not only as a continuum, but a place where the past and present, rural and urban are in constant dialogue. Despite some deservedly hard edges, its this vision of an open-hearted, open-bordered U.S.A. that gives All American Made its lasting power. | ||