January 20, 2019

Riding a wild elevator of emotional highs and lows over a span of four days, as she mourned her mother’s passing and experienced the joy of marrying her partner, East Nashville singer-songwriter Amelia White somehow managed to get through the recording of Rhythm of the Rain. And she’s still dealing with the ugly fallout of the 2016 election and what it means for an openly gay artist residing in the South.

What she refuses to do is sweep these issues, whether personal or political, under a rug, as pliable, flowing folk-rock and richly layered Americana—often buoyed by soft, yet supple, rhythmic propulsion —gently frame White’s poetic protests and evocative storytelling. A dark, immersive spill of liquid tones, “Free Advice” takes dead, sardonic aim at sexism in the music industry, while a reflective “Mother of Mine” is cloaked in swoops of violin as it wrestles with conflicted memories. The spare desert that is “Yuma” mesmerizes, as does a haunting, bluesy “Sugar Baby” that’s sensual and seductive and talks of being “stuck here with a jailhouse ghost.” The imagery she employs is cinematic, and so is the instrumentation, never intruding on White’s meditations as it works on creating lovely backdrops.

Plucking banjo, the slight whinny of slide guitar wrangling and wraiths of lap steel crop up here and there, accentuating a connection to Nashville’s greats that is undeniable. It all seems perfectly arranged, the product of sublime craftsmanship and subtle instincts. Warm and inviting, the easy country-rock drawl and gritty chrome of “Little Cloud Over Little Rock” contains traces of Neil Young’s DNA, while the swaying title track, with its sweet, golden nest of interwoven acoustic and electric guitars, is a rippling lullaby coming to grips with anxiety in the age of Trump. Rhythm of the Rainfights the good fight, standing up to bullies in the earnest, lightly weathered folk-pop sweep of “Said it Like a King” and fighting religious intolerance in a stirring and soulful “How it Feels,” with soaring accompaniment from the Anti-Bigotry Choir. It also has the power to soothe.

—Peter Lindblad

No Depression Review

Jan 20, 2019

Rating: 7.5/10

White, who moved from Boston to East Nashville some 20 years ago, has been integral to making that area's mindset a destination of choice. Even though I just got this album (her seventh) yesterday, I feel compelled to give White a shout-out. Other Nashville luminaries such as Will Kimbrough, Julie Christensen (again), Fats Kaplan, Dave Coleman, Sergio Webb, and Dave Jacques pay their respects as well. 

This US release is an expanded version of the 2017 EU album, and finds White in a wistful, bittersweet mood sung with a maple colored voice that makes her lyrics more poignant, and the songs linger on. For a more thorough take on the record read what my buddy Chris Griffy has to say. He and his wife are on a cruise this week, so he won't mind. ( AMOS PERRINE) 

East Nashville has a reputation as an incubator for quirky artists and left-of-center Americana artists for a reason. While gentrification and rising rents have diluted the reality of that in recent years, the sheer number of roots musicians spawned by that particular musical incubator can't be denied. Since the early 2000s, Amelia White has been a vital part of that scene, becoming a regular at the now defunct Family Wash and notching opening slots for the likes of John Prine, Brandy Clark, and Asleep at the Wheel. With her newest album Rhythm of the Rain, her seventh releasing Jan. 25, White reflects on an increasingly divided nation, as well as her own recent personal losses and gains.

The results, and resultant fallout, of the 2016 elections have been a popular subject for roots musicians in the last year, but White finds a new perspective via tour routing, which took her through the UK during the 2016 election season and allowed her to see the shock and fallout through the eyes of the world community. The result is the album's title track, a blues-guitar driven drawl that begins with a spoken “don't think too much, people” before unwinding the story of a person who find herself using a rainy British day for some self-reflection on a home she no longer recognizes.

More cutting is the album's highlight “Free Advice.” As a woman trying to make it in Nashville for 20 years, Amelia White knows a thing or two about the kind of “free advice” you get from Music City's mostly male label machine. The resulting song is the most cutting indictment of the record industry since Tom Petty's “Joe” from The Last DJ. White's drawl is perfect for lines like “find something cheap that looks good on you. A low cut blouse, a miniskirt. You'll look taller in heels that hurt” and “soften your look and toughen your act.” The blatantly sexualized nature of the advice she is given lends some extra menace to the line “don't make me say this twice. There's no such thing as free advice.”

Another standout song is “Mother of Mine.” After losing her mother, White chose not to write the typical tribute but instead to ruminate on the true relationship between a mother who “always wanted a classic little girl” and the openly lesbian tomboy who chafed against being “your dress-up dolly.” That setup could have led to a needlessly angry song but White's songwriting skill perfectly captures the complicated nest of emotions that are the truth of any familial bond. The division is there, hanging unspoken in the air above her mother's death bed, but there's also undeniable affection in White's voice when she croons “Mama, we ran out of time. I held your hand as your spirit crossed the sky.”

Elsewhere on Rhythm of the Rain, White discusses another life change, her marriage to her partner. The result is “How It Feels”, which mixes the joy of that moment with the evangelical bigotry the two faced along the way. Early in the song, White sings “Jesus died for all, gave his precious blood, but not for me”, echoing the hateful signs and slogans she encounters (along with giving a nod to Patti Smith's own reactionary line from “Gloria”), but finishes the song comfortable at home with her love, immune to the hatred from outside, and reclaiming her own happiness with the line “We've come to believe, Jesus died for all, gave his precious blood. This is how it feels, like coming home.”

After 20 years in the business, Rhythm of the Rain isn't going to be the album that makes Amelia White a mainstream country star. There are too many strong opinions, too many controversial takes, and too much lyrical nuance for radio. But one gets the sense that White is just fine with that. Every choice White makes on this album is in service of the song, the entire song, no matter into what uncomfortable territory it might take her. And, while that may never make her rich, it further cements her legacy as an East Nashville treasure worth following down any rabbit trail she chooses to explore. The journey is more than the destination, and Rhythm of the Rain plays like a leisurely trip with an old friend.

If you'd like to catch Amelia White live, she will be taking to the road in support of Rhythm of the Rain in the United States and Canada before trekking across the pond to the UK. Here are the dates:
Jan. 12- The Listening Room- Mobile, AL
Jan. 23- Album Release Show, Club Passim- Cambridge, MA
Feb. 12- Folk Alliance- Montreal, Canada
Feb. 28- Dyson House- Baton Rouge, LA
Mar. 6- Eastlake Concert Series- Columbia, MO
Mar. 7- The Americana Series at Haymarket Brewery- Chicago, IL
Mar. 10- Byron's- Pomeroy, IA
Mar. 11- Picks Gallery- Osage Beach, MO
Mar. 13- Blue Door- Oklahoma City, OK

Viola Krouse’s Top 40 Americana CD’s for 2018

December 12, 2018

This week Viola Krouse listed “Rhythm Of The Rain” as one of the top 40 Americana CD’s for 2018.

To see the article click here: https://www.makingascene.org/viola-kruses-top-40-americana-cds-for-2018/

By GGM Staff - November 30, 2018

Amelia White navigates personal and political loss on new album ‘Rhythm of the Rain’.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — If there were an East Nashville Music Hall of Fame, Amelia White would already be in it. The now-famous scene was in its formative days when White arrived from Boston in the early 2000s and became a fixture at Family Wash. She’s been a leading light in America’s most musical zip code ever since, even as she’s developed a reputation in the rest of the U.S. and Europe as a first-rate songwriter. She helped define and refine the core folk-rock sound of Americana, yet her band’s energetic pulse never outshines her carefully wrought lyrics. She’s a poet who’s been compared to more famous songwriters for years; now, it would be more appropriate to use her as a benchmark.

White’s seventh album, Rhythm of the Rain, due out January 25, 2019, is a volume of ruminations and short stories written largely during a tour in the U.K. in 2016. There, at a distance and with a sense of helplessness, she watched America’s political system and her values attacked from within. Then the project was recorded by East Nashville sonic maestro Dave Coleman (The Coal Men) in an emotionally wrenching four days between White losing her mother and marrying her partner. Roots music is a journal of love and loss, and Rhythm of the Rain couldn’t be a more potent dispatch. 

“As a songwriter, I feel obliged to tell the stories that are coming through in the air to me in my world whether it’s personal or political or both. That can be hard,” White says. “The antenna is always on. Man, you’ve got to feel a lot. It’s a heavy load sometimes.”

She’s shared shows with the likes of Brandy Clark, Asleep at the Wheel, John Prine, and Justin Townes Earle, as well as performed for a handful of folks in unknown cafes. “There was a point in my career where I realized you have to go out and knock on doors with your songs,” she allows. “They need to be sung for people and that means a relentless tour schedule. If I were a trucker I’d be rich.”

The 12-song collection opens with a sunny snap of drums and a slurry steel-like guitar figure, in keeping with the electric punch that’s always been a key part of White’s sound. Then “Little Cloud Over Little Rock” zooms in on a scene in a bar in Middle America, where White lets telling details evoke a situation full of mixed emotions, of resignation and perseverance. White has always gleaned song inspiration through talking with people in the cities she visits. “I find that if I truly open up on stage, people come and want to tell me about the skeletons in their closet.”

The artist balances bitterness and grace in the farewell song “Mother of Mine.” She says that after her mother’s passing, “I wrote a letter to her — a really honest letter, and of course a song came about.”

“She wanted me to be ‘a classic little girl’ and that’s not what she got. I could never say these words to her face, and now she’ll hate me from the grave,” White adds with a wistful laugh.

In a timely tune, White gives a sexist music industry the back of her hand in “Free Advice,” a song that came about after repeated DJs asked her about her age, “Would you ask Bob Dylan that?” In “Said It Like a King” (written with Lori McKenna) personal, religious and political bullies are exposed. “True or Not” (written post Women’s March on Washington) transmutes the despair of the worlds unfairness into a “peaceful battle cry.”

Though she lives in one of those famous blue islands in a red state, local evangelical bigotry was enough to prompt “How It Feels” as a celebration and affirmation of her marriage. She notes, “It’s tough growing up gay in the South — in the past year it feels like they are trying to shove us back in the closet.”

The title track has its own distinct restraint, musically and emotionally. “Rhythm of the Rain” is most distinctly set in London and most intimately tied to the slipping away feeling of the November 2016 shock. Instead of defiance, here, she tries self-comfort, curling up, breathing and tuning out a storm of hate with the white noise of a downpour.

Amelia White doesn’t chase opportunities. She chases songs and gives her entire focus to the listeners and fans who show up, year after year, to commune with her music.

Her songs and co-writes have been recorded by some of the great names of Americana music: Anne McCue, Julie Christensen, Wild Ponies, and Tony Furtado.

“When faced with whether to go out in Nashville and schmooze, or take a walk and start a song in my head I’d always choose the SONG,” she says. “And sometimes I feel that I pay for that.”

Yet we listeners are the ones getting something of value.

Beneath it all Amelia White is a great story teller. Her songs are vivid portraits painted in broad strokes about a myriad of things...from her parents to her lost loves to traveling the continent and meeting new people and experiencing new cultures. Kind of like Anthony Bourdain with a guitar instead of food." - William Hurley, FALLOUT SHELTER 

read more here: https://shoutout.wix.com/so/33MUiKh0Z?fbclid=IwAR3x2uaYCU9sYRY7QwlixuPgG0mMy33z4z2wf_sD1pBdCftIAutnvAdi0Zc#/main

Song Premiere: Amelia White’s “Said It Like A King” From Upcoming Album “Rhythm Of The Rain”

Listen & Watch Song Premiere

December 7, 2018 Melissa Clarke

Americana Highways brings you this song premiere of “Said It Like A King,” a teaser from Amelia White’s album Rhythm of the Rain, due to be released in January.  The album was produced by Dave Coleman; the song features White and Coleman on guitars, Sergio Webb on guitars and banjo, Megan Jane on drums.  The album has both bassists Dave Jacques and Parker Hawkin; a duet with Will Kimbrough and an appearance by the Anti Bigotry choir, among other guests.

If you are a “lyrics-first” person this is going to resonate with you deeply, and if you like prominent rhythms, this shuffle beat will carry you all the way along.  “Said It Like a King” moves from school yard bullies, to bullies from the pulpit; winding up with a warning that little eyes and ears are watching and growing up to repeat the cycle. The message here is a sober one; seemingly innocent displays of violence in play may affect little boys in ways that are far from innocent. “Just child’s words, you say it don’t mean a thing,” carry a sober reminder of the way a child’s loss of innocence can translate into entitled supremacy later in life.

This song was written years ago with one of my favorite artists,  Lori McKenna. It started as a tune about bullies on a school bus, and grew in content to explore the religious and political varieties and tie them all back in to the child at the end,  thanks to a twist provided by third writer, Lorne Entress.  With films like Boy Erased out in theaters, and the political environment we live in it seems like such a timely song, so I re-recorded it. It’s at the heart of  the 12 songs on Rhythm of the Rain, and I love its very specific and raw feel.  — Amelia White

It’s not going out on a limb to say that what Amelia White is creating is atypical to what women in Americana are doing in general these days.  This is much darker and grittier, which renders it a welcome relief.  This is a wonderful song as a harbinger of the album to come; keep an eye out for this one here: http://www.ameliawhite.com/ while you listen for yourself, here:

BY ANDY THORLEY -

NOVEMBER 30, 2018

If there were an East Nashville Music Hall of Fame, Amelia White would already be in it. The now-famous scene was in its formative days when White arrived from Boston in the early 2000s and became a fixture at the Family Wash. She’s been a leading light in America’s most musical zip code ever since, even as she’s developed a reputation in the rest of the U.S. and Europe as a first-rate songwriter. She helped define and refine the core folk-rock sound of Americana, yet her band’s energetic pulse never outshines her carefully wrought lyrics. She’s a poet who’s been compared to more famous songwriters for years; now, it would be more appropriate to use her as a benchmark.

White’s seventh album, Rhythm of the Rain, due out January 25, 2019, is a volume of ruminations and short stories written largely during a tour in the U.K. in 2016. There, at a distance and with a sense of helplessness, she watched America’s political system and her values attacked from within. Then the project was recorded by East Nashville sonic maestro Dave Coleman (The Coal Men) in an emotionally wrenching four days between White losing her mother and marrying her partner. Roots music is a journal of love and loss, and Rhythm of the Rain couldn’t be a more potent dispatch.

“As a songwriter, I feel obliged to tell the stories that are coming through in the air to me in my world whether it’s personal or political or both. That can be hard,” White says. “The antenna is always on. Man, you’ve got to feel a lot. It’s a heavy load sometimes.”

She’s shared shows with the likes of Brandy Clark, Asleep at the Wheel, John Prine, and Justin Townes Earle, as well as performed for a handful of folks in unknown cafes. “There was a point in my career where I realized you have to go out and knock on doors with your songs,” she allows. “They need to be sung for people and that means a relentless tour schedule. If I were a trucker I’d be rich.”

The 12-song collection opens with a sunny snap of drums and a slurry steel-like guitar figure, in keeping with the electric punch that’s always been a key part of White’s sound. Then “Little Cloud Over Little Rock” zooms in on a scene in a bar in Middle America, where White lets telling details evoke a situation full of mixed emotions, of resignation and perseverance. White has always gleaned song inspiration through talking with people in the cities she visits. “I find that if I truly open up on stage, people come and want to tell me about the skeletons in their closet.”

The artist balances bitterness and grace in the farewell song “Mother of Mine.” She says that after her mother’s passing, “I wrote a letter to her — a really honest letter, and of course a song came about.”

“She wanted me to be ‘a classic little girl’ and that’s not what she got. I could never say these words to her face, and now she’ll hate me from the grave,” White adds with a wistful laugh.

In a timely tune, White gives a sexist music industry the back of her hand in “Free Advice,” a song that came about after repeated DJs asked her about her age, “Would you ask Bob Dylan that?” In “Said It Like a King” (written with Lori McKenna) personal, religious and political bullies are exposed. “True or Not” (written post Women’s March on Washington) transmutes the despair of the worlds unfairness into a “peaceful battle cry.”

Though she lives in one of those famous blue islands in a red state, local evangelical bigotry was enough to prompt “How It Feels” as a celebration and affirmation of her marriage. She notes, “It’s tough growing up gay in the South — in the past year it feels like they are trying to shove us back in the closet.”

The title track has its own distinct restraint, musically and emotionally. “Rhythm of the Rain” is most distinctly set in London and most intimately tied to the slipping away feeling of the November 2016 shock. Instead of defiance, here, she tries self-comfort, curling up, breathing and tuning out a storm of hate with the white noise of a downpour.

Amelia White doesn’t chase opportunities. She chases songs and gives her entire focus to the listeners and fans who show up, year after year, to commune with her music.

Her songs and co-writes have been recorded by some of the great names of Americana music: Anne McCue, Julie Christensen, Wild Ponies, and Tony Furtado.

“When faced with whether to go out in Nashville and schmooze, or take a walk and start a song in my head I’d always choose the SONG,”she says. “And sometimes I feel that I pay for that.”

Yet we listeners are the ones getting something of value.

To see the article click here.

BY BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER at WIDE OPEN COUNTRY

East Nashville singer-songwriter Amelia White has been a staple of Music City's independent country scene since the early 2000s. A sought-after collaborator, White has helped shape Nashville's Americana scene and shared bills with John Prine, Brandy Clark, and more.

Now White is gearing up to release her seventh album, Rhythm of the Rain (out on Jan. 25), a 12-song collection that boldly shares stories of turmoil in America, defiance, grit, forgiveness and perseverance.

Today, Wide Open Country is premiering the video for the album's folk-rock title track, which finds much-needed comfort in what's left to trust in.

The video was shot in Nashville and the U.K. -- a fitting location considering White was inspired to write the tune by watching the 2016 U.S. election from overseas.

"I wrote this song while touring in UK and watching the bitter battle that ramped up to the Nov. 2016 U.S. election through the eyes of the BBC," White says. "'Rhythm of the Rain' is about carving out your place of peace in this mad world. I love the moment in the video where Shakespeare gazes at us, almost smirking at this mess we've gotten ourselves into."

To see the full article click here.

 Amelia White “Rhythm Of The Rain” (White Wolf) Outstanding songs accompany a fantastically soulful, wearily hopeful East Nashville voice. Take for instance Sugar Baby, a modern prison ballad – it oozes Deep South temptation and wrongdoing. Intelligent rhythms and arrangements drive all the songs along – no two sound too similar or dissimilar. Title track Rhythm Of The Rain has a fantastic minor to major turnaround for the chorus. Don’t take my word for it, listen below.

Mark Nenadic
December 21, 2017

read the full article here.
 

Nashville singer-songwriter Amelia White operates in social-realist mode throughout her new full-length Rhythm of the Rain, and you may find its themes relevant in this hour of our national distress. A soulful vocalist who sings like a less self-indulgent Lucinda Williams, White makes music that could serve as the great mean of, well, Nashville East Americana. She pours her lyrics into a pot of condensed soup that could use a little spicing up for the table, but her light touch saves the day. Released this fall in Europe and set to drop domestically next year, Rhythm of the Rain peaks with “Said It Like a King,” a critique of misguided American self-confidence: “Preacher’s face is red / His fists both swing / He says you will fear temptation / And he said it like a king.” Rarely have the standard usages of Americana-ized songwriting been put to more pungent use — pass the soup.

Edd Hurt
Nashville Scene "Critic's Pick"
December 2017

read the full article here.

Lonesome Highway

Amelia White Rhythm Of The Rain  Self Release
 

Amelia White recorded this record in the four days between her Mother’s funeral and her own wedding. Her last release (Home Sweet Hotel)brought great praise and I read somewhere that she “illuminates the ordinary” - a fitting description of her creative muse. This is a really strong release with plenty of dramatic playing from the studio musicians that include Sergio Webb (guitars, banjo), Dave Coleman (guitars, organ, vocals), Dave Jacques (bass), Megan Jane (drums/percussion), Eamon McLoughlin (violin), as the core players supporting Amelia, who contributes guitar and lead vocals.

Comparisons with Lucinda Williams are somewhat inevitable given the tired, road-travelled, texture in the vocal delivery but there is also the sweet refrain of Eliza Gilkyson and if you wrap it all up in a pretty bow – guess what; you get the unique talent of Amelia White.

There are co-writes with Lori McKenna, The Worry Dolls, Annie McCue and Ben Glover, among others, and the quality never dips for a moment. There is compassion, understanding of living life on margins, trying to make sense of daily rush to feel relevant; words tumble down like “his friends are coming to drink their unemployment down on Friday night, American small town” (Little Cloud Over Little Rock); “the poor get poor and the rich get richer; war is stirring back home, the rain taps on my window” (Rhythm Of The Rain).

The final track, Let The Wind Blow, sums up the feeling of a love gone cold in the lines; “Fire went out and the bed went cold, and your eyes won’t meet mine anymore; I put good money on this one, I don't like to be wrong….” This artist is the real deal and running through her tough look at life is a steely resolve to always come out fighting and winning at the end of the day.

http://lonesomehighway.com/music-reviews/2017/12/2/reviews-by-paul-mcgee.html

By Paul McGee

December 2, 2017

November- December 2017

R2R http://www.rock-n-reel.co.uk

I am new to Amelia White. A quick online search revealed that she is a 'lifer' and this is her eighth album. It always amazes me when I discover such a voluminous back catalogue. I dipped into the other albums (available on iTunes) and they all contain top notch songwriting. I have seen Amelia described as a writer-songsinger and that seems an apt description. Amelia is a fine singer, with a voice that can can sound like Gretchen Peters, Karen Carpenter or Lucinda Williams at times, however she is a songwriter first and foremost.

Amelia is from Virginia. She started out in Boston, spent time in Seattle and has now been based in, where else, Nashville for a long time. The inspiration for her songs clearly comes from travelling and observing. The beauty is in the details and I could fill this review with examples of her descriptions that can paint a picture in a few words ('It’s another round for the old man humming to George Jones, his friends are coming to drink their unemployment down on Friday night, American small town'). This is a great skill.

The tone is upbeat, but there are disturbances bubbling right underneath the surface. Amelia just describes, without accusing or complaining. This leaves the listener free to draw their own conclusions. The overall air is one of acceptance. Things are as they are.

The opening track, 'Little Cloud Over Little Rock' was inspired by a photograph. Amelia wrote about it on her Facebook page, and this really illustrates the entire album:

"The idea of the tune to me (because it's a song therefore, you can have your own idea of it) is that my life takes me all over smalltown America where I witness people.. all kinds of people. Red state people, blue state people... they may have their differences but in the end they laugh, they work, they drink, and they wish they had more money, or a better job. The song really is a reminder to me to not take what I see for granted. Life is short, beautiful, through the struggles we find some kind of mutual comfort, rubbing elbows at a bar, a show, or a church. The clouds blow by, and the sky gets blue again, it's the endless cycle.”

'Yuma' is about someone who is leaving, but again the power is in the images of the scene Yuma leaves behind: 'One last tune on the record player, something 'bout the truth from another soothsayer, something 'bout life being just a cruel joke, have another drink, light another smoke. And the band plays on all night long, what was that song? All the pretty women dance and sing along'. This track brought Ryan Bingham's 'Sunrise' to my mind; a song I absolutely love.

'Said It Like A King' is a re-recording of a track that appeared on a previous album ('Motorcycle Dreams'). It is a terrific song, that deserves to be heard widely. Where the previous version featured an Edge-style guitar, this time the song has a shuffled rhythm, slide guitar and violin. There is an air of suspense as the song deals with bullying and deceit.

The title track starts with the spoken words 'Don't think too much people'. Sound advice in today's world. Amelia wrote this song last year whilst staying in her promoter's attic in York during a UK tour. She was reading the news from back home and began to write, observing from a distance. Some of the songs are co-writes, with amongst others Grammy Award winner Lori McKenna, with Northern Ireland native Ben Glover (a UK Americana Award winner) and with England's own Worry Dolls.

The overall vibe is summer-y and lazy. And that brings me to the sound. If I drove this would be music to drive to. It sounds gorgeous. The album is produced by David Coleman. I do not recognize the names of the other musicians credited, but no doubt they are top class session folk. Amazingly the record was recorded in four days, in between the singer burying her mother and getting married herself.

Amelia is headed this way. After a previous tour she said, “UK has been a fantastic experience. I’ve met so many great people who actually have the attention span to listen to a whole night of original tunes...” (nodepression 2012). We sure do. Her UK tour starts at the Camden Green Note on 13 November.

Helen

9/11

http://www.therockclubuk.com/index.php/album-reviews/2954-amelia-white-rhythm-of-the-rain

Amelia White manages something special in the world of Americana. She takes the ordinary and commonplace and manages to illuminate the core, make you feel the sense of import in the littlest thing. She uses her words to clarify little droplets of information and so makes the listeners life a little more complex, a little more involved. And she does it without making huge, sweeping, emotional statements but with a sense of gentle humour as well as her needle sharp observations.

Her last album was ‘Home Sweet Home’, all about the travails of life on the road, and I would say that this is its equal even though it was recorded in only four days – emotionally an incredible time as it was between her mother’s funeral and her own wedding.

Her themes are vast – fate, death, politics, grief and loss of tradition – but she views it all with a wry smile and a sense of love.

Musically, the album ranges from rockers such as ‘True Or Not’ or heavy country numbers like opener ‘Little Cloud Over Little Rock’ while she is at her best on ballads such as the gorgeous ‘Supernova’ where her slightly nasal singing voice counterpoints some lovely guitar. The darkness around the album’s closer ‘Let The Wind Blow’ evokes a brilliantly moody atmosphere.

White is so much more than just a country singer and also so much more than just a songwriter. One of the best Americana albums I’ve heard recently.

http://www.music-news.com/review/UK/12892/Album/Amelia-White

27 October 2017 (released)

Andy Snipper

October 27, 2017

Monday 23 October 2017

Rhythm of the Rain: Amelia White Uses Grief As A Palate To Colour New Songs

"Don't think too much, people" is the spoken word snippet that begins the title track of Amelia White's newest album, Rhythm of the Rain.  

It's a flippant warning, a half-joke, a sideways call-to-arms that announces a casual subversion threading through these nine songs from the opening explosion of summer sunshine, through the heat of lust and addiction, landing with a glance at politics and fate while the window is still wide open, warm breeze blowing in the late afternoon. 

Amelia White asks us to not take it all so seriously and, at the same time, shows us how critical it all is: love, fate, death, grief, politics, which isn't surprising considering White made this record in the four days between her Mother's funeral and her own wedding. 

Rhythm of the Rain digs deep. Her well worn smokey pipes deliver a rawness you"d expect from mining that liminal space between grief and joy. 

While touring, last year, White stayed in a promoter's attic in York, and reading the news from the US began to write the songs that would make up Rain. 

That ocean of separation gave her the necessary distance to comment on the shake-up back home without finger pointing, something that White has always done. 

What separates Amelia White from most other songwriters in the Americana genre is her details. 

Like a short story writer steeped in the gothic humidity of the backroads, White illuminates the ordinary: "…dyed black hair and ear ring feathers/she"s gotta put three kids through school - she's sipping on the sly to keep her cool" (Little Cloud Over Little Rock). 

"Boy sat on a bus in the only open seat, mittens in one hand and a backpack at his feet" (Said It Like a King).  

There's a catchy melodic laziness to her rock and roll, an afternoon drive in the country, the top down, bare legs up on the dash, singing along to your favorite song: 

"When you feel like a sinking sun, you're not the only one", she sings, on Sinking Sun and you can almost taste the freedom of summer adolescence.  

The light threads through these songs.  "Sunshine coming through my window/I found something that I wanted…you" she sings to a lover in "Supernova," and later the love turns dark in Sugar Baby. 

As the album winds to a close, White leaves us with the one-two political punch of True or Not? 

"There's talk in the street that the deal is changing, everybody's on edge, look around" and then gently releases us with the hopeful coda, Let The Wind Blow, written with UK darlings, Worry Dolls. 

It's a wistful dream: "Miles and miles I thought I"d found a place to call home and a hand to hold/I put good money on this one, I don"t like to be wrong, I don"t like to be wrong." 

Lifers. It's how we define musicians called to the stage, living life in hotels, and friend's spare rooms, playing small and large clubs with sticky-floor stages, and microphones that taste of cigarettes. 

White has had TV and film placements (most notably Justified), record deals, cuts by some of the finest artists in the Americana world, but for her the success is in the doing, and there is no choice in the matter. 

She is a rock and roll soothsayer, an East Nashville Cassandra with an Americana gospel shout thicker than the paper-thin illusion of fame and money.  

Rhythm of the Rain is a late afternoon storm, a sky on the verge of cracking as wide open as Amelia White's heart. 

Amelia White plays The Greys, Brighton, on Tuesday 14th November 2017. CLICK HERE for more info.

by: Mike Cobley

http://magazine.brighton.co.uk/Clubs-and-Music/Reviews/Rhythm-of-the-Rain-Amelia-White-Uses-Grief-As-A-Palate-To-Colour-New-Songs/21_45_4892

Mmmmmm, Smokey and Sultry Songs of Love, Life and Grief.

Sometimes it’s difficult to put into words why you like a particular singer or band; but with Amelia White her voice tugged at my very heartstrings the first time I heard it 5 or 6 years ago; and the stories she tells and the way she sings them makes me go weak at the knees every time they come out of the office Hi-Fi.

RHYTHM OF THE RAIN is Amelia’s 8th album in nearly twenty years and ( #SpoilerAlert ) is by far her most mature and probably the best I’ve heard.

The intro to opening track Little Cloud Over Little Rock sounds like a cool Indie Alt. Country band is about to kick in; them Amelia’s haunting and slightly smokey voice filters out of the speakers and a whole new aura envelopes the proceedings.

The story is full of intimate detail you’d normally associate with writers like Dylan and Joni or maybe Springsteen; not someone you’ve probably never heard of before. The character in the song has ‘dyed black hair and ear feather rings/she’s gotta put three kids through school/she’s sipping on the sly/to keep her cool’…..see what I mean? And it’s got a cool melody too.
Songs like Sinking Sun and Yuma probably sum up my feelings about Amelia White best; not quite Southern Gothic, but pretty damn close and with a swampy Country feel to them too; sort of as if Bobbie Gentry was singing her saddest songs with Creedence backing her.
There are Love Songs here aplenty; but not the ‘Moon in June’ type; these are dark and mysterious; the type you find later in life……listen to Sugar Baby and Supernova without getting a shiver down your back, and you are a stronger person than I am.

If this is your type of music; and I presume it is if you are still reading this far; you will absolutely love the title track Rhythm of the Rain; and my personal ‘favourite’ song here…….Let The Wind Blow, which closes the proceedings. In theory a simple enough song until you listen a second time, and even more intently the third and fourth times as a gorgeous story unfolds and unravels like a magical fairytale.

While these songs were written long before Amelia went into the studio; but when you realise that this album was written in the four short days between her Mother’s funeral and her own wedding; you will find an extra special spirituality in the way she delivers these beautiful songs.

Released October 27th 2017

https://rockingmagpie.wordpress.com/2017/10/24/amelia-white-rhythm-of-the-rain/

No, there’s no sign of a cover of The Cascades’ 1962 hit here; it’s all very much contemporary Americana. Amelia White’s style is very distinctive, and this is emphasised by the spontaneous feel of “Rhythm of the Rain”, which was made in four days at a very  turbulent time in Amelia’s life. When she growls ‘Don’t think too much, people’ at the beginning of the title song, you can take a literal interpretation or a sarcastic one. Either works, it just depends wahich song you’re listening to. It’s certainly never going to be described a bundle of laughs, with “Yuma” and “Sugar Baby” dealing with addiction and “Sinking Sun” staring into depression.

The musical stylings are pretty diverse, ranging from the adult-oriented-rock feel of “Sinking Sun” and “True or Not” to the laid-back Crazy Horse feel of “Supernova”. The album has a more raw, rockier edge than last year’s “Home Sweet Hotel”; although “Sugar Baby” opens with a menacing, ”Deliverance”-style banjo and eventually moves through the gears to “Sticky Fingers”-era Stones. Then there’s the title song, with a backbeat, swampy texture, and a sense of oppression and foreboding contrasted with the folky string band styling of the album’s closer which is enhanced by some nice Hammond organ.

There’s one song that stands out, even on an album packed with powerful songs and performances, and it’s a co-write with Lorne Entress and Lori McKenna. The skittering rhythms of “Said It Like a King” make the song feel like it’s rushing uncontrollably towards an unpleasant revelation; I may be looking for examples of this everywhere at the moment, but this song does sound like it might have been partly inspired by the leader of the free world. It’s about bullying and pulls together vignettes featuring a bully on the school bus, a hellfire preacher and a general delivering unpalatable messages which are accepted because each one “Said it like a king”. It’s a very clever lyrical idea, but the kicker comes in the final verse. No spoilers, you have to listen for yourself.

“Rhythm of the Rain” is an intense experience; even the opening song “Little Cloud Over Little Rock”, peeping into the lives of smalltown Americans having their Friday night fling to a soundtrack of Merle Haggard and George Jones is underpinned by the quiet desperation of the line ‘his friends are coming to drink their unemployment down.’ Is the album downbeat? Yep. Fraught? Sure. Compelling? Utterly.

“Rhythm of the Rain” is released in the UK on White-Wolf Records on Friday October 27th.

Amelia will be touring the UK in November. Check out the dates here.

http://musicriot.co.uk/album/rhythm-of-the-rain-amelia-white/ 

by  Mckaya ON MONDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2017