Little Big Town Albums (3)
'A Place to Land'
Release Date 11/6/2007
Tracks 12
Label Equity Music Group
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What The Critics Say
Little Big Town scored big with its second album, 2005's The Road to Here, thanks to high charting singles like "Good as Gone." Karen Fairchild, Kimberly Roads Schlapman, Jimi Westbrook, and Phillip Sweet fused rootsy contemporary country with acoustic and electric instruments, and their vocal harmonies inspired by Fleetwood Mac proved irresistible. A Place to Land is superior to its predecessor in every way, though: production feels more organic, the music is more sophisticated, and the lyrics more poignant. Perhaps the real secret to the success of this quartet is its secret weapon in behind-the-boards fifth member Wayne Kirkpatrick, who serves as the band's producer and songwriting partner. He's chief guitar picker, and plays just about anything with strings, as well as the clavinet and B-3. If the sound on The Road to Here is reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac's glory years, A Place to Land drinks deeply from the well of the entire Southern California scene from the mid- to late '70s. It's not all regurgitation, either. Little Big Town's sound is rooted deeply in traditional, organic country music. Their songs meld seamlessly with the vocal harmonies that evoke vintage Crosby, Stills & Nash and the Eagles' earliest records. While the album's opener, "Fine Line," literally rings with Lindsey Buckingham's chord progressions, choruses, and arranged vocals (à la "Go Your Own Way"), it's open rock & roll territory with one exception: the verse structure has enough hard country to rise above that influence. The musicians distinguish themselves a bit more on the album's road-weary first single, "I'm with the Band." Its beautifully paced B-3, electric guitars, big cracking drums, Dobro, banjos, and mandolin are woven into a beautiful road song. The Eagles get melody-checked in "That's Where I'll Be," but the harmonies here could only be better if Bernie Leadon and Timothy B. Schmit joined in for six-part harmony. The acoustic guitars rise and fall, keeping a steady rhythmic chatter that serves as a painterly backdrop for those gorgeous voices. There is a loneliness and conviction in the song that feels authentic. This band has another side as well, and it's brought out in spades with the spooky "Evangeline," a harrowing song about emotional abuse: "You don't have to be kicked to be bruised/And you don't have to be hit to be abused...." It's one woman talking to another, exhorting her to see what's happening at the hands of a sick, violent man. With its high lonesome guitars, a spidery Dobro, and muffled floor tom, it's as powerful in its way as Gretchen Wilson's "Independence Day." Those who thrive on love songs will find "To Know Love" irresistible. It's profound in its poetry and simplicity. "Novocaine," with its bluesed-out slide opening, explodes into a hand-clapping rocker. For all of LBT's appropriation of signature sounds from '70s L.A., their manner of employing them is, paradoxically, their trademark. There isn't another act out there on the road or in a studio today that sounds remotely like them. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
'The Road to Here'
Release Date 10/4/2005
Tracks 13
Label Equity Music Group
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What The Critics Say
Little Big Town has undergone adversity since its self-titled debut album, released by Sony's Monument Records, barely reached the country Top 40 in 2002 behind the chart singles "Don't Waste My Time" and "Everything Changes." For one thing, that sales performance was not enough to keep Monument from dropping the group. Then, group member Kimberly Roads' husband passed away, an event marked by the plaintive ballad "Lost." Two other members were divorced. No wonder, then, that it has taken them more than three years to bounce back with their second album, issued by the Nashville independent label Equity Music Group. Whether it's those troubles or just the passage of time, however, Little Big Town has improved significantly since that debut disc. Before, they seemed more an idea than a band -- two male and two female singer/songwriters whose style seemed as much influenced by '70s Southern California soft rock as by any country performers. That influence hasn't changed, really; you can't listen to "Bones," for example, without thinking of Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain." But the group's sound has become tighter, more focused, and more distinctive. Maybe it's experience, maybe it's the absence of the powers-that-were at Monument, and maybe it's the presence of co-producer, co-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Wayne Kirkpatrick (the CCM artist who is the co-author of the Grammy-winning Eric Clapton hit "Change the World," among many other songs). Kirkpatrick has taken the group under his wing and overseen a record full of songs arranged to showcase the four lead vocalists in varying solos and harmony parts, backed up by roots-country instrumental tracks dominated by acoustic guitar, mandolin, and Dobro. The initial result was a Top 20 country hit with "Boondocks," which has something of a Montgomery Gentry feel to it. There's more of that sort of thing on the album, particularly in the songs written by the band with Kirkpatrick, but they still have a weakness for stringing clichés together ("This monkey on my back/Has stopped me in my tracks," goes a couplet in "Wounded"). The best songs are actually ones Kirkpatrick wrote with others and brought to the project, particularly "Live with Lonesome" and the novelty "Welcome to the Family." But even when the material is not top-drawer, the performances are, making this the album Little Big Town had in it and didn't manage to get out the first time around. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Little Big Town is a vocal quartet consisting of two men and two women who sing their songs by mixing up lead vocals and harmonies, such that one may start a song only to have another take the second verse, while some other combination sings the choruses. This, of course, is not typical of country music, nor are the song arrangements, which lean heavily to a folk-rock sound with prominent acoustic guitars and rhythm section, but only touches of fiddle and steel guitar; nor, for that matter, are the songs themselves, most of them written by the group members, which tend toward a pop sensibility with their generalized romantic sentiments. In the inevitable game of describing a new act by its antecedents, one must throw out names like Fleetwood Mac rather than any specifically country artists. Actually, Little Big Town does call to mind certain country acts of the past. They may remind knowledgeable country fans of such late-'80s performers as Foster & Lloyd and Kennedy Rose, duos that earned critical kudos (especially from non-country critics), but struggled to earn a commercial footing and ultimately found greater success behind the scenes as writers. Championed by Monument Records, the same label that changed the parameters of conventional country success with the Dixie Chicks, Little Big Town may succeed by rewriting the Nashville rule book in a similar way. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
