Graham Reid | | 3 min read
You're Gonna Fall
In the past few years Tami Neilson must have wondered frequently what gods she had offended.
She had moved to New Zealand from Canada (although her natural musical home was the America of Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash and country music).
She'd been part of the touring family band in the US but here started at ground zero in her career and rebuilt from modest beginnings. Over time and superb albums, awards and well-received tours she was ready to make that move back into America.
It was geared up with the album Chickaboom! in 2020 which being given a push in the States and she'd already had excellent advance notices, No Depression magazine wrote “just call 2020 'The Year of Tami,' ” and said Chickaboom! was “the first great album of the year.”
Then Covid hit and her tour was cancelled.
Her career was on hold (although during lockdown she created a terrific series of videos to keep her name and larger-than-life persona out there).
She started again but then was unexpectedly pushed back again when she contracted a near-fatal bout of sepsis.
Then her beloved brother Jay with who whom she wrote, recorded and toured was sidelined with a brain injury.
I don't know if Tami prays but if she does whatever Lord was listened must have had to listen to a lot of pleas.
Now however – with this new album, her 12th since 2008 by my count – it appears the “world famous in New Zealand” Neilson's time has come in that long-sought American market.
She's touring with Willie Nelson following her duet with him on the poignant Beyond the Stars from her 2022 Kingmaker album and her subsequent Neilson Sings Nelson tribute album.
Her new album Neon Cowgirl – all Neilson originals or co-writes, most with Jay – has her again with the cream of New Zealand musicians which includes guitarist Brett Adams, pedal steel player Neil Watson, saxophonist Nick Atkinson and string arrangements by Victoria Kelly.
Neil Finn duets on the title track.
It punches home right from the orchestrated opener Foolish Heart with the cloud-piercing drama of Roy Orbison, an influence also discernible in One Less Heart.
It reminds you that Neilson is an accomplished writer and singer in many genres and can turn her hand to moody Peggy Lee, heart-aching Patsy Cline, uplifting gospel (I wish she'd cover Wade in the Water), rockabilly and so much more.
Perhaps that could be read as her not having her own distinct signature, but any fair hearing her albums -- or just a stroll through these videos -- disabuses that: Neilson puts a signature stamp on all these spaces and styles.
Salvation Mountain is the high-energy, boot kickin' country-rock offspring of Chuck Berry's Too Much Monkey Business and her own breathless Big Boss Mama (in itself a trickle-down from Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues.
Borrow My Boots is a rollicking banjo-fuelled country-rocker of female empowerment which links back to the coherent feminist stance on her previous album Kingmaker.
Borrow My Boots
Loneliness of Love is a piano ballad and You're Gonna Fall arrives out of the desert on twanging guitar as singer J.D. McPherson becomes the Lee to her Nancy.
Love Someone is stirring amped-up swamp-funk, Keep On is Southern Gothic storytelling with a soaring, soulful finale.
The moving title track featuring Finn plays to Neilson's reclaiming of women's contribution in country music and aspirations for herself and other women in the genre.
It also refers to Nashville's neon cowboy near Ernest Tubb's record shop, her desire to also be up there in lights, and the cowboy that was above Kean's jean shop on Auckland's Queen Street.
The latter appeared on the cover of the 1987 Neon Cowboy album by Al Hunter who – along with the Warratahs – made country popular before the 1990s stadium-rock of Garth Brooks and “hat acts”, and Americana singer-songwriters before Taylor Swift.
So Neon Cowgirl arrives as part of a personal and cultural continuum, and as Tami Neilson's impressive calling card to that American audience she deserves.
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You can hear and buy Neon Cowgirl at bandcamp here
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