Bna Entertainment
2007
Big Love In A Small Town
About This Album
Sarah Johns is a country singer/songwriter whose debut album, Big Love in a Small Town, is a thoroughly contemporary country record that is also steeped deeply in the tradition that begat Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn -- and to a lesser extent the middle period of Tanya Tucker -- but whose attitude is drenched in the kind of freedom swagger that Gretchen Wilson brought back to country (on the other side of the "rowdy-and-wild-as-the-boys" fence). Produced by Joe Scaife, Big Love in a Small Town is exclusively made up of tunes co-written by Johns. These are hard country songs, devoid of the kind of pop trappings so common in Nashville (though '70s-styled Southern rock makes its voice heard in places here). These 11 tracks are drenched in fiddle, pedal steel, and Dobro, more so than any mainstream country record since the late '80s, but its production values are contemporary country down the pipe. This set has as huge a sound as one by Keith Urban or Martina McBride, though its instrumentation, arrangements, and filigree are decidedly more roots than pop. The tunes walk a line between hardcore, modern honky tonk heartbreak tunes ("A Lot to Let Go Of") and two-steppers like "When Do I Just Get to Be a Woman.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and 9)

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