Album Review – The Wonder Women of Country – “Willis, Carper, Leigh”
There is strength in numbers, and no doubt country music needs heroes to step up and help save the genre, especially when it comes to the representation of strong and talented women. More powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, the Wonder Women of Country have formed to help battle the forces of evil in country music, and perhaps to fight crime and save lives whenever called into action as well.
Texas music songwriter and performer Kelly Willis, bass player and throwback marvel Melissa Carper, and country traditionalists/killer guitar player Brennen Leigh have been an occasional tour bill over the last couple of years. But less of a true musical collaboration, they simply played and sang on each other’s songs as a tour package. The troika went off so well—and was so hounded by show attendees for music to take home with them—the Wonder Women of Country was officially formed.
Though they may have initially seen this debut EP as more of a merch play to peddle at live shows, these three women have stumbled onto something that is quietly genius, highly appealing, and woefully underserved in the current country music space. All three of these women have dedicated solo careers, and will continue to do so into the future. But hey, if Boygenius can blow up and win Grammy Awards, why not Willis, Carper, and Leigh?
On paper, this collaboration may not be entirely intuitive. Kelly Willis is more of the modern-era Texas music songwriter, trying to use emotion and rhyme to convey common sentiments. She’s also been signed to major labels and nominated for ACM Awards. On the other hand, Brennen Leigh and Melissa Carper who’ve collaborated together for years are more throwback artists who’ve always been in the independent roots space.
But it’s the skill sets and approaches these three women bring that make The Wonder Women of Country such an interesting and omnivorous affair. Brennen Leigh’s “Fly Ya To Hawaii” is the perfect example of her old soul disposition that employs classic country sounds and delightfully dated lyrical references. It also happens to be a perfect example the Polynesian influences in country music via the steel guitar.
“Another Broken Heart” and “A Thousand Ways” written and sung by Kelly Willis are much more contemporary, looking to speak to people’s everyday struggles and frustrations with love. Melissa Carper’s “Won’t Be Worried Long” is a great tribute to the power of country music to alter mood and perspective to positive results, while also highlighting her attributes as a performer.
The three different approaches result in a lot of variety for Willis, Carper, Leigh, but this variety also comes through in the production and instrumentation, with some songs being more classic, and others being more traditional in a contemporary manner. They also cover John Prine’s “I Have Met My Love Today,” which takes a sort of beatnik poetry approach with the prominent bass and hand drums.
What makes it all gel together like the perfect glazing on a pineapple ring upside down cake? It’s the love and appreciation all three have for each other’s songs, and most importantly, the three-part harmonies that conjoin everything together. Their “oohs!” and yodels on “Fly Ya To Hawaii” will send you straight to country music heaven.
The only issue with this EP is the brevity of the material. But hey, you have to launch the prototype first and have a proof of concept before spending thousands of bucks on a side project. No reason for Willis, Carper, Leigh to get in the way of what these three women are accomplishing on their own already. But hopefully, they will continue to accomplish things together into the future as well.
8/10
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Purchase Willis, Carper, Leigh
March 16, 2024 @ 10:27 am
Roger Cook is co-writer on “I Have Met My Love Today.” He also wrote “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress” and “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” for the rest of you nerds out there ????
I love this supergroup. I hope they are massively successful.
March 16, 2024 @ 12:23 pm
And George Strait’s I Just Want to Dance With You with John Prine.
March 16, 2024 @ 11:40 am
Who is playing the steel guitar?
March 16, 2024 @ 7:18 pm
Geoff Queen, except on “Hawaii” as that’s Chris Scruggs.
March 17, 2024 @ 1:37 pm
Thanks. Some good stuff.
March 16, 2024 @ 11:51 am
Ugg more representation huh? Who cares if the act is male or female, black or white, Christian or Zoroastrian, it’s the music itself that counts. This identity politics bovine scatology is so tiresome and every time you talk about “representation” it deters me from coming back to this otherwise excellent blog. Please for the love of God stop. Leave it to the incorrigible moon-bats on twitter.
March 16, 2024 @ 12:59 pm
Dude, just said in passing it was cool to see some talented women banding together for a good project. You’re the one going on a rant here. Believe it or not, I agree that the identitarian approach to music can be overdone. But that doesn’t mean we can’t also recognize that it tends to be harder for women in this business.
“It’s the music itself that counts.” I agree, and that’s what 98% of this review is about.
March 16, 2024 @ 1:21 pm
I apologise for my tone dude, it was not my intent to rant, though to be clear I never accused you of ranting either. That being said I have to disagree that identitarianism has it’s place anywhere or anytime. It’s poison to the body politic.
March 16, 2024 @ 3:02 pm
About half of my favorite country singers are women and I often advocate for them on this here website. But it’s not out of any sense of feminism or wokeness or political correctness, just something I care about.
I also however once had an employer looking for any chance to get rid of me and when they did they hired far less qualified people of different minorities to replace me (yes, they needed two people to replace me). I worked for a women’s blah blah blah non profit and I’m sure the fact that I was replaced by minorities was at least seen as a silver lining by the people who might have thought I’d been done dirty.
I guess what I’m saying is that, I hear you, but at the same time women have always had it tougher in country music, something I care deeply about.
March 16, 2024 @ 6:36 pm
Hey buddy, cheers for the considered response. Sorry to hear you were put through the wringer like that.
Both you and Trig have asserted that women have a harder time than men in country music (presumably short hand for “getting the recognition they deserve”) and I query the veracity
of that claim. Do women really have a harder time, vis-a-vis men, gaining warranted success?
My issue with this, in a nutshell, is that that it appears to assume a prejudice against women as the principle cause, where as other less PC explanations aren’t considered. For example, many more men do it (“it” being lyrics, musical composition, live performances etc.) better than most women and the ratio of successful men to women reflects that quality of talent. Or, as another explanation, the male voice has greater aesthetic appeal to a large proportion of country fandom.
None of this is to diminish the talent of the ladies singing for their supper, but I’m just not convinced that the relatively small number of women in country is indicative of a harder working environment for them. There are plenty of men who struggle as well.
March 17, 2024 @ 5:36 pm
GM Slack,
I’ve been writing about country music for 16 years, and have now published over 8,400 articles. I just spent the last week in Austin bouncing all around town for SXSW, scouting for up-and-coming talent, catching up with more established artists, talking to managers, publicists, label heads, promoters, etc. I probably saw 50+ artists perform this week. I can say without any shadow of a doubt that it is harder for women to break into country music than men. This has nothing to do with numbers. This is about seeing it with my own eyes, out in the field, out in the crowd, talking to other folks in the industry, and surveying the challenges all independent artists face and trying to solve them.
I agree that there are some hyperbolic takes on identitarian issues in country music that act like there is a cabal of straight White men in a smoky boardroom somewhere purposely keeping women down because they want to control their vaginas. That perspective is false, and unhelpful. This is a very, very complex issue as to why there are less women in country music. The main one is simply consumer habits by listeners. But another is that it is harder for them. You don’t have to be “woke” to recognize that.
Ironically, in huge swaths of the Americana industry and in the media, Saving Country Music is known as the most misogynistic and sexist website in existence. People think I leave a wake of raped women wherever I go, clutching themselves in abject fear. This is because I address these issues with nuanced and atypical perspectives, and call people on their identity first bullshit. So then to be called out on my own website by my own readers for being some sort of identity first ideologue is quite rich.
Of course it’s harder for women to make it in music, just like it’s harder for Black folks. That’s just fact.
March 18, 2024 @ 2:49 am
For some reason I can’t reply directly to your second comment below. So here it is.
“I’ve been writing about country music for 16 years…”. This is pure argument from authority and is thoroughly unconvincing. Simply listing your bona fides and then reasserting your position doesn’t constitute a valid argument. It sounds as if your perspective is coloured by the assumption it’s harder for women and you then proceed to interpret things from that a priori.
“Being called out…for being some sort of identity first ideologue”. This is a straw man of my contention, I didn’t accused you of any such thing and nor would I. Your article begins by referring to “strong women” and “female representation”, this reads as virtue signaling and appeasement to the histrionic woke set. More to the point, it sets the tone for the rest of the article, a prelude that provides the mood music for the piece.
“Of course it’s harder for women…blacks…that’s just fact”. No, it’s an interpretation of fact, an opinion. The facts are that there are fewer women and blacks (and probably Zoroastrians) that white men garnering success in country music. Again this disparity is not indicative of the difficulties they face. As the well known story goes, when a young musician asked an older one for some advice about a career in music the response was “don’t”, it’s difficult for everyone.
March 17, 2024 @ 10:17 am
Actually 99.7% of what you wrote was about the music…
March 17, 2024 @ 10:20 am
It’s also harder when there was a very high bar set decades earlier for all-female collaborations like this. Let’s not forget the Dolly/Linda/Emmylou TRIO albums of 1987 and 1999.
March 20, 2024 @ 2:38 pm
No good deed… Trigger, thank you for sharing your thoughts. Out of all the insights and opinions and expertise you bring, someone makes a big deal out of a harmless, factual observation. These days, the pendulum of intolerance has swung all the way back to the extreme opposite side (from where it has spent most of history, out of equilibrium).
Hope these ladies put on a show at a local dance place around Austin (I really miss the Carper family, just wow).
Keep up the great work, wish I had met you in Austin when you were here.
March 17, 2024 @ 9:38 am
You sound fun.
March 18, 2024 @ 8:39 am
I think the simplest way to look at this is that more types of people connect to artists with some sort of actual or presumed human connection to their own lived experience. This is no more “woke” than the very basic fact that, if a successful country artist hailing from Baton Rouge came to success singing songs about a childhood playing in the same bayou that you did as a child, you would likely feel a stronger sense of pride/connection in that music. Which obviously doesn’t mean you *can’t* find connection in other music made by people without this biographical detail in common. It’s pretty straightforward. And when > 50% of the population is female, that’s obviously a huge possible point of connection for things as simple as pronoun matches for the objects of desire/love that the artists sing about.
I don’t think the average country music fan needs to feel guilted or compelled to care about representation or diversity in country music. Especially if you’re a straight white man and getting plenty of connection with the profile of artists you love. So if that’s the end of the story for you, fine. But SCM’s has a more specific agenda with this blog, so it actually does matter to him, because more representation means more possible connections to different possible audiences which has an effect on the genre as a whole.
March 16, 2024 @ 1:23 pm
This is the album Highwomen wishes it was
March 17, 2024 @ 4:42 pm
Or the Pistol Annies?
March 16, 2024 @ 3:12 pm
I took my kids to see this ladies at Knuckleheads in KC. Being a fan of all three it seemed like a cool show. But I would never go see Kelly Willis on her own. And the chance of going to watch either Brennan or Melissa headlining a show is slim too, even though I love their songs. The lady leads just aren’t what I usually go to see. But this show was so much better than I thought it would be. They are terrific together. Great chemistry. I will see them anytime they come through. These ladies have toiled for a long time and I’m so glad to see them find each other and use the opportunity. I hope they get real paid.
March 17, 2024 @ 9:40 am
It’s weird to say you’d never see Kelly Willis solo.
March 16, 2024 @ 4:00 pm
: D Glad these girls are out there having a good time, & bringing great music.
Hey Trig,
Hope you are having a Blast in Luck.
Just sat down in Spectrum Center.
Eagles set to take the stage at 7:30.
Steely Dan was supposed to guest with them, but a family member of the Steely Dan band had a medical emergency. Hoping that person is going to be alright.
Vince will be playing an acoustic set, in the place of.
Double the Vince.
Awesome
March 17, 2024 @ 6:41 am
Kelly Willis is probably the most known of these three, but for me I have spent more listening time on Mellisa and Brennan. In fact I haven’t listened to Kelly much at all. But I think her two songs stand out on this album. Especially Another Broken Heart. She has been pretty quiet the last few years, at least from a recording standpoint. Maybe this will boost her into a second half of her career as a more traditional country artist.
Overall a solid, if short, new album. Though it does seem more of a collection of a couple singles from each artist than a collaboration.
March 17, 2024 @ 7:24 am
Just a beautiful record to sit down with on a Sunday morning, drinking my coffee while perusing last nights Country events across the nation. “like the perfect glazing on a pineapple ring upside down cake?” ….LOL One of your best lines ever Trig, very nicely put…… you’re The GOAT!
March 18, 2024 @ 10:43 am
There are moon bats everywhere,including here,GM Slack . Anyway, hopefully we’ll hear MUCH MORE from these talented ladies.
March 18, 2024 @ 11:31 am
I have been listening to their EP and to Kacey Musgraves’s album over the weekend and mulling over the ways in which “collaboration” influences music. In the Wonder Women’s songs, their individual voices seem to add up to something greater than the sum of their parts. (The same could be said for boygenius, I’m With Her, and a number of other groups. [Not sure about The Highwomen, if I’m honest.])
But with Kacey’s record, the singularity of her voice seems to be drowned by the homogenizing effects of Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk’s co-production. When she broke into the scene, she offered a fresh sound on a specific milieu (TX trailer parks). But I can hardly hear any of that independent spirit at this juncture except for the last couple of tracks on Deeper Well.
So: in what circumstances does collaboration makes things BETTER and in what circumstances does it make things WORSE? (I get it that that is a very simplistic take. Counting on the SCM savants to help me with this one.)
March 19, 2024 @ 10:52 am
I want to marry Leigh.
What a songbird.
March 19, 2024 @ 2:54 pm
Thanks for the review, Trigger. The sample tracks are quite nice, and I always had a modest respect for the work of Kelly Willis.
Oddly enough, the KW song I remember best is her cover of Big Star’s “When My Baby’s Beside Me”, which I enjoy repeat listenings to now and again.
Anyway, this partnership release warrants my further attention. Great harmonies!
Thanks again.
March 20, 2024 @ 2:04 pm
Have seen/heard these fine women around Austin for years in various bands and venues. Really happy to see them featured here. I hope they do some shows around town. Thank you!