Margo Price - Heart Of America

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from her "All American Made" 2017. Third Man Records
Margo Price cut her 2016 debut, Midwest Farmer's 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 2017's All American Made. Written and recorded in the aftermath of Donald J. Trump's November 2016 election, All American Made doesn't disguise Price's 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 hasn't abandoned country -- the album opens with the rockabilly of "Don't 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 Campbell's trippiest moments. Price isn't 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, it's this vision of an open-hearted, open-bordered U.S.A. that gives All American Made its lasting power.

AllMusic Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine [-]

Margo Price doesn’t seem to care for the notion of being a country traditionalist and the cult success that comes along with it. The 34-year-old singer-songwriter would much rather name-drop David Bowie and Willie Nelson in interviews as artists with the ideal chameleonic career paths and spend some time courting mainstream fans touring as Chris Stapleton’s opening act. She’s also wisely aligned herself with Jack White, a musician who has adapted elements of roots music and raw rock to great acclaim and whose label, Third Man Records, has released all of Price’s solo material to date. But there’s still something unabashedly throwback about Price. After years of smoothing out her vocal timbre as a member of Buffalo Clover, the ‘70s rock-influenced group she was in with husband Jeremy Ivey, she’s let the twang take the lead. And much like the Nashville grinders who turned that Tennessee town into Music City U.S.A., she’s not letting this wave of buzz and momentum go to waste, hurrying out her second album, All American Made, only 19 months after her debut (last year’s Midwest Farmer’s Daughter).

Mostly, it’s the sound of Price’s albums that have given her art an old-school air. She and Ivey (who co-wrote many of the songs on both LPs) are clearly steeped in the ‘60s and ‘70s outlaw country aesthetic, which brought elements of psychedelia, blues, and soul into tales of romantic and personal hardship.

With a little more time and money to burn, Price and co. spiced up the nervy and raw sound of Midwest with the addition of a string section on some tunes, some gospel-like backing vocals when needed, and a little ProTools augmentation to create the collage of presidential speeches that floats in and around the title track. Otherwise, she and the band stick comfortably to their chosen lane, setting the folksy shuffle of “Heart of America” next to the Willie Mitchell-like groove of “Do Right by Me” and the doleful ballad that is “Loner”. She even pays a small tribute to her idols by inviting Nelson in to duet and drop a jazzy acoustic solo on “Learning to Lose”.The modern updates to this vintage sound go beyond the music. Price does give the kiss off to a useless beau on “Don’t Say It” and sings about finding her way in the world on “Do Right”, among other tried-and-true country tropes, but what’s striking about this album is her lyrical focus on larger societal ills.

All American is unapologetically feminist in the mode of Loretta Lynn’s birth control anthem “The Pill” and Dolly’s “Just Because I’m a Woman”. Price, though, explores many shades at once. While there are comments about the double standard of women artists balancing the work of music, marriage, and parenthood while their male counterparts cut loose on “Wild Women”, she allows that she might just go a little crazier than the rest while she’s on tour since father and son aren’t there. She even drops the f-word into “Pay Gap”, her Cajun-tinged head shake at income inequ