(This article is from the archives of Baby Ride Easy, the Carlene Carter fan site run by Doug Stalnaker 2003-2008.)
On the first single from her new album, Carlene Carter sings about how "Every Little Thing" reminds her of her man when she's alone. This is the kind of song that many women have sung as a self-pitying ballad, but Carter belts out the words to a vigorous, country-rock beat. Far from feeling sorry for herself, Carter seems to get a little more excited with each reminder, and her anticipation builds through the verses until it busts loose on the triumphant chorus. She rides the beat, raising her voice impatiently at the start of the title line.
No female country singer has ever seemed as comfortable with an emphatic backbeat as Carter, and as she bounces and bomps her way through the catchy country-rock on her new album, Little Love Letters, her delight proves contagious. She exemplifies the new attitude of country women: She's not going to wait around for love to find her; she's going to go out and get it. "I Love You 'Cause I Want To," she crows in the title of the song, and her delivery makes it clear that this declaration is prompted as much by desire as by independence.
As the granddaughter of Maybelle Carter, the daughter of June Carter and Carl Smith and the stepdaughter of Johnny Cash, Carlene brings a long line of country tradition to her songwriting, and even her rockingest material is rooted in a honky tonk two-step. She has a big voice that can ring out with perfect clarity, and on top of that, her past rock 'n' roll experiences bring an assertiveness to her music and lyrics that sets her apart.
Carter co-wrote 13 of the album's 14 songs with collaborators like Howie Epstein and Benmont Tench from Tom Petty's Heartbreakers, Al Anderson from NRBQ, Radney Foster, Elton John's longtime partner Bernie Taupin and her own longtime guitarist, John Jorgenson. Epstein, who returns as producer from Carter's 1990 breatkthrough album, I Fell In Love, anchors a great country-rock band that also includes Tench, Jorgensen, Albert Lee, David Lindley, Jay Dee Maness, Buddy Emmons, and the Wynonna rhythm section of Willie Weeks and Eddie Bayer. The music jumps out of the speakers with an exuberance that matches Carlene's.
"Wastin' Time With You," for example, is a country-boogie number that can barely contain the excitement of Tench's two-fisted piano work. Carter swings into the rhythmic accents with abandon and cries out that no jury would convict her for skipping work to waste time with her new lover. You'd hate to argue against her. When she sings out that a potential love is a "Sweet Meant To Be," she and the band build such an inexorable momentum that there's no denying her. "Nowhere Train" and "Hallelujah In My Heart" take a more acoustic approach to the album's dance rhythms but prove just as irresistible. The pace is broken up just often enough by four slower numbers. Carter's octave-climbing optimism is persuasive when she declares to a doubtful lover, despite the immediate evidence, that anything is possible in this "World Of Miracles." Even better is Tench's simple wish for an "Unbreakable Heart"; the tune boasts the same kind of jazzy chords that Willie Nelson wrote into "Crazy" and Patsy Cline picked up on, and Carter sings it just that classily. All in all, Little Love Letters marks a major step forward for Carter into the first rank of country singers.
Geoffrey Himes - Country Music magazine (1993)