Carlene Carter Fan Club: Music

MILWAUKEE (WISC.) JOURNAL - July 15, 1983

The LP mixes up-tempo pop-rock gems like "Meant It For A Minute" with a dreamy, strings-textured mid-tempo number, "Heart To Heart," and a light peppy disco song, "I'm The Kinda Sugar Daddy Likes." Although Carter wrote most of the songs in collaboration with some of her band members, particularly James Eller, the album also includes a version of Jerry Lee Lewis' "Breathless." Carlene slowed it down, wrote a definite melody, supported it with new chords and turned out a version that she described as "soft, sexy and wistful." The song was originally recorded for the movie "Breathless," but the group X's version, a close remake of the original, was chosen instead. "Heart To Heart" could easily fit into a middle-of-the-road radio format, while "Meant It For A Minute," a tough, clever-talking pop-rock song, could crack the more rocking Top 40 stations. Or perhaps the song's video, which Carter described as a cross between "Beat It" and "Flashdance," might break her through the music and cable TV station route.

RECORD - October 1983

Carter retreated to the confines of Rockfield Studios in Wales, legendary for some outstanding Dave Edmunds productions in the mid-'70s. Settling in with some of husband Nick Lowe's cronies (producer/keyboardist Roger Bechirian, guitarist Pete Marsh and bassist Andy Howell, collectively known as Blanket Of Secrecy; also bassist/songwriting partner James Eller and drummer Terry Williams), she then moved as far away from her noted country roots as possible to deliver the fresh, modern-sounding "C'est C Bon." The abrupt stylistic reversal was not pre-planned to take advantage of the currently bullish new music market, she claims, but the natural result of working with so many pure popsters. And unlike too many synth-dominated records, "It sounds relaxed, but it doesn't sound bored." The reason? "There was a lot of collaboration on this album. I mean, if one of us didn't like something, the others would say, "Go ahead, take it home and make it better!" And after a few years spent in a musical and contractual limbo, Carlene Carter knows precisely what she's going for with her next record: "We're gonna make it the same as this one, only tougher."
WAYNE KING