Austin Native, Nashville Resident Suzy Oleson Releases Debut Album (Review)
Born and raised in Austin, refined in Massachusetts, and currently emanating from Nashville, singer / songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Suzy Oleson has released her debut self-titled album which includes 10 country rock tracks that hope to find a favorable audience with your ears. Previously heard in the bluegrass outfit Chasing Blue—an extension of the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston where Suzy studied—and the Nashville-based female supergroup The Local Memories, Suzy now seeks to find her own sound and success in the scary world of the music business as a solo artist.
As much as prestigious music schools create extraordinary pools of talent, turning that talent into a commercial enterprise might be one of the biggest challenges in music today. You almost find better odds as a late-blooming sloppy guitar player who didn’t pick up music until your sophomore year of college and somehow got discovered in a coffee shop than as a musical prodigy turned professionally-trained musician. Launching a music career has never been more challenging, and in the independent realm, nobody is going to be impressed with how fast your fingers move on a fretboard. Songs are the one commodity that can help an artist break through the incredible crush of new talent looking to get noticed.
And songs worthy of being heard is what Suzy Oleson has on her debut. For the country listener, this album may take some warming up to. The verbiage preceding it speaks more about rock, classic rock, folk rock and the sort, but what you find especially after the first two songs is material that very much fits into the country realm. Call this a hard-driving country album, and nobody will look at you sideways, even though the influence of the Rolling Stones and Small Faces certainly can be felt in certain tracks.
In nine original songs and a cover of George Harrison’s “I Live For You,” Suzy Oleson raises spirits, soothes broken hearts, connects with the audience through an array of emotions, and does so in a variety of different approaches that shows a command of various stylings. The first two songs “Come To Me” and “Just One Night” are full-tilt beer joint performances, and compliment Suzy’s voice which seems to be at its best when its out front as opposed to passive or restrained.
But by the time you get to “I Live For You,” the album strikes a somber, country heartbreak tone, and is extended into two of the best tracks on the record—the longing of “In The Fall” and the torn pieces of “Two Broken Wings”—bisected by a sweet little fiddle tune called “Way Out East.” The distance between locations and loves in Suzy’s recent itinerary certainly went into inspiring some of this record’s material, and insuring the record was an inspired effort.
“Love Fills The Plate” is one of three songs co-written with fellow Berklee College grad and Chasing Blue member Maggie MacKay, and once again shows that Suzy is not just a studious musician, but an inspired artist who can tap into the emotion and sentiment necessary to enchant an audience. The album ends with another country rocker, “This Time Tomorrow Night,” and makes sure the audience finishes this album not just touched, but entertained.
The one question this debut leaves unanswered is the open-ended, “Who is Suzy Oleson?” She’s done her job here of compiling original songs and getting great musicians to help interpret them in the studio, but sometimes it’s certain unique intangibles and hard-to-define idiosyncrasies—some of which society and institutions of higher learning attempt to breed out of us—that go on to be the things that really grasp at listeners and turn them into hardcore fans. What can Suzy Oleson do or say that has never been said or done in music before? It’s not necessarily a question if those qualities are present in Suzy Oleson, but if she can find them and gracefully push them to the forefront.
Suzy Oleson is an unsigned artist looking for attention in an overcrowded marketplace that rewards no points for time put into studying or discipline. But she shows in this debut release that she possess the heart, the experiences, and the sense of perspective necessary to connect with listeners at large.
1 3/4 of 2 Guns Up (8/10)
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November 24, 2015 @ 8:07 pm
Solid album, especially the middle section
November 24, 2015 @ 8:45 pm
I like her sound. You found a good one.
November 24, 2015 @ 10:24 pm
This album already showcases great talent, but imagine how great she’ll become as she grows as a vocalist. Damn.
November 25, 2015 @ 2:16 am
I like the music a lot , I feel the guitars are too loud compared to vocals. Her voice needs to have the spotlight.
Can’t find her on spotify sadly, hopefully she makes it big.
November 25, 2015 @ 9:01 am
Has anything ever been refined in Massachusetts?
November 25, 2015 @ 9:03 am
Haha. What an abysmal place….
November 25, 2015 @ 11:11 am
She didn’t go to Massachusetts to study liberal arts at Boston College. She went to one of the most prestigious music schools in the country, and one that I might add is doing excellent things to preserve the foundations and traditions of bluegrass music for generations to come, and teach them to a new crop of performers. I iterated my concerns about that system actually producing relevant entertainers, but let’s not lump all biases against a region on a girl just because she got the opportunity to study at arguably the best school for bluegrass in the world.
November 25, 2015 @ 11:51 am
So when other commenters make broad generalizations about the South that’s totally fine ,I make one joke about Assachusetts and get a lecture.Some people can’t take a joke I guess.
November 25, 2015 @ 12:01 pm
People unfairly making fun of Southern stereotypes is a pet issue around here. I don’t like regionalism in any form or fashion. In this case, I felt like an unfair burden was being lumped on an artist born and raised in Texas and currently residing in Tennessee. Sure, we can all joke and I don’t mean to overly sensitive about it. And if I was, I apologize. I was just setting the context. It’s not Suzy Oleson’s fault the best bluegrass school is in Boston. Southerners spending time in Northern cities and vice versa is probably good for all of us in the effort of breaking down stereotypes.
November 25, 2015 @ 12:12 pm
If you don’t like regionalism, then why should any person have any pride at all in their region, or see it as better, or more fit for them than any other region? The Greeks were notoriously haughty, provincial and snobbish. They had a right to be. They created the greatest culture in the history of civilization. I’m not comparing the South to Ancient Greece, but relative to other areas of the US, the South created the most unique and longest-lasting culture in the US. What is “Northern” music? What is “Northern” cuisine? We all know what Southern music and cuisine are….
November 25, 2015 @ 2:21 pm
RD,
Look, this is an album review for a girl from Austin who plays country music in Nashville. I have no desire to quibble over what region of the country has stronger or better culture, not because I don’t have an opinion, but because it’s not relevant to the discussion. You want to smear Boston and Massachusetts, go right ahead I guess. But to do so in the context of this album review I felt was a little unfair to this artist. One passing comment is one thing, but when a couple of folks felt the need to chime in, I felt the need to chime in too.
A month ago today I was writing an obituary for Bill “Brad” Keith, who was one of the best banjo players to ever walk the earth. He also happened to be a native of Boston, Mass. Bill Monroe did not hold the fact that Bill was from Boston against him when he enlisted him for the Bluegrass Boys. My point is great music can come from anywhere. It’s more likely to come from certain locales than others. Like, I don’t know, Austin, TX, where Suzy Oleson is from. But in the end all music must be judged on its own merit. Where it comes from is just an interesting footnote.
November 26, 2015 @ 4:56 am
I was reacting to your reply where you attacked regionalism and spoke of “breaking down stereotypes,” not to the article, itself.
November 25, 2015 @ 10:14 am
I look forward to hearing this later when I get to my real computer. I’ll add that my father (who briefly lived in Mass while working as an engineer) was an usher for Arthur Fiedler’s Boston Pops one summer in the early 1950s. The orchestra has participated in some interesting country collaborations over the years (Chet Atkins in the 1960s as an example ).
November 25, 2015 @ 3:22 pm
Yes. The oldest functioning Constitution in the world was written by a man from Braintree: Freaking John Adams, the man who bought our Independence by going to Paris AND Amsterdam as an ambassador while George Washington was busy losing battle after battle.
He’d have been our first President too, if Alexander Hamilton hadn’t rigged the electorate.
November 25, 2015 @ 6:45 pm
Joco isn’t improving the image of rednecks. Is it xenophobia or pure ignorance from whence this opinion is formed?
November 25, 2015 @ 8:09 pm
Actually since Massachusetts isn’t a foreign country xenophobia doesn’t apply here but kudos for almost using it correctly & I thought I was the one who was supposed to be ignorant.
November 27, 2015 @ 1:12 pm
Joco, xenophobia is the fear of anything that is different or out of one’s comfort zone. I’m a Texan with two graduate degrees and one of them is from an Ivy League. I stand by my first comment which is on target. Have a nice day.
November 25, 2015 @ 11:54 am
Echoes of Della Mae in Suzy’s ‘ grass-y ‘ approach to a song . Tradition is alive and well in these sparely – dressed tunes . The few stray intonation/pitching issues ( which could have been easily addressed in production ) are distractions I’ll trade any day for the authenticity and the heart in this collection …
November 25, 2015 @ 7:22 pm
Trigger,
I’ve had a question I’ve been wondering for a while when I read your sight, so I guess now is as good as a time as any. Do you feel like it’s ok to blend genres? Like Suzy here blending Rock and country. I feel like people are more forgiving when artists fuse country and rock music together, but people get all bent out of shape whenever anybody wants to fuse pop and country. Now don’t get me wrong, I hate pop country, but I think it’s a little hypocritical to think that blending some genres is OK and then others isn’t. And don’t get me wrong there either, I’m not saying you’re hypocritical I’m just stating in general. So what I’m asking is, do you prefer cut and dry ” this is country” or “this is rock ‘n’ roll” or do you like it when to genres come together?
November 25, 2015 @ 9:30 pm
Hey Benjamin,
This has come up and been discussed numerous times on the site over the years, and you’re right. On the surface at least, it’s hypocritical to complain about combining genres, but give rock a pass.
There’s nothing wrong with combining genres. The question is the “what” and the “how” and the “why”? One of the reasons rock and country have combined so well over the years is because they’re so close sonically. However rap, hip-hop, and EDM for example are sort of on the opposite side of the spectrum. Country and rock use organic instrumentation, and hip-hop/EDM use electronic instrumentation, for example. If an artist is combining two genres because that’s the best way to express themselves creatively, that’s one thing. If it’s to water down both influences and appeal to the least common denominator, that’s a whole other thing. So at some point you have to judge the music on a case by case basis.
I’ve written a few articles on this very subject. I can’t think of them all at the moment, but here’s one that shows an example of when combining two separate genres can work, in my opinion:
https://savingcountrymusic.com/adam-matta-exemplifies-creative-cross-genre-collaboration
Another is the new Yelawolf album “Love Story.”
https://savingcountrymusic.com/why-yelawolfs-love-story-is-important-to-country-music
November 25, 2015 @ 10:13 pm
Rock uses electric instruments (and sometimes electronic instruments like keyboard synths), which are not truly organic. This is not an important distinction today since electric instruments have been around for so long, but in the past the acoustic vs. electric debate was pretty intense (e.g. the controversy around Bob Dylan going electric, and the controversy around the adoption of electric drums in country music in the 60s and 70s).
November 25, 2015 @ 10:11 pm
Since the “pop” in pop-country was almost entirely rock until recently, I do not see the distinction between “rock-country” and “pop-country”.
November 29, 2015 @ 5:12 pm
Yeah this is good stuff, been listening quite regularly ever since seeing this review. Very versatile set off songs, the perfect balance of up/down tempo tracks and mood changes. I can’t help but think that during her time in Massachusetts she saw a few Sarah Borges shows. Some of the more rocking songs on here remind me of The Broken Singles.