Buddy & Julie Miller: Written In Chalk
[New West]
By Jason Killingsworth on March 2, 2009
Paste Rating 84commendable
User Rating (2 votes) 87
Teenage boys don’t typically learn how to play the guitar in order to make some grand artistic statement. Most are just looking to stir up two things—a glorious racket and, if the fates are feeling particularly generous, a bit of attention from the fairer gender. When Buddy Miller sat on the edge of his bed as a kid—long before the unruly mane fanning out from beneath his trademark ball cap turned grey—and tentatively strummed along with his favorite rock LPs, I doubt he had any idea just how well he’d manage, in both respects.
Beginning with 1995’s Your Love And Other Lies, Miller unleashed a string of gritty, soulful records that earned him a reputation as one of the finest—many would argue the finest—living practitioners of country music. And then, of course, there’s his coterie of beautiful, silver-throated songbirds: Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Alison Krauss, Shawn Colvin, Patty Griffin. And, of course, his wife Julie, whom he fell for in the mid ’70s while the two were in Austin band Rick Stein & the Alleycats. The couple married in 1981, cementing a remarkable musical partnership.
Even though Buddy and Julie’s first official duo record didn’t arrive until 2001, the pair had collaborated extensively for years, writing together and performing on each other’s records. That first joint release, titled simply Buddy & Julie Miller, was named Album of the Year at the Americana Music Association’s first annual awards show and widely lauded by the music press.
The girlish, endearingly porcelain tenor of Julie’s voice sparkles when backed by the robust, velvety twang of Buddy’s counterpoint. But the magic you feel as a listener comes from more than just the sonic jigsaw of Buddy’s and Julie’s vocals. There’s a soul-clasped gut intuition to the way their voices dance about one another that just breaks your heart.
It’s fitting that the Millers’ second duo record, Written In Chalk, contains a song written by Julie commemorating the late June Carter Cash. Buddy and Julie recorded “June” in their home studio the evening of May 15, 2003, the night June Carter Cash passed away. It’s a stripped-down, ruminative farewell, sung from the perspective of the husband left behind, still dressed head-to-toe in black, ill-equipped to mourn the crushing loss. Julie’s voice sounds scratchy and raw, like she’s been crying, and Buddy’s harmonies take on a devastating emotional weight in light of their fellow Nashville lovers, who will no longer share a tune this side of heaven.
Even though the record’s opener “Ellis County” kicks off with a belly laugh, Buddy’s goofing count-off and the uplifting scrape of Larry Campbell’s fiddle part, Chalk’s theme of heart-crippling loss is firmly established at the outset. “Take me back when times were hard but we didn’t know it / If we ate it, we had to grow it / Take me back when all we could afford was laughter and two mules instead of a tractor / Take me back again,” Buddy sings with relish before Julie leaps in with the harmony. This recurring mantra of “take me back” begins almost every phrase in the song, but no matter how many fond memories are recounted, it doesn’t take a Ph.D in physics to realize that those times are over and done with. There’s no going back.
“Gasoline And Matches”—the lone Buddy/Julie co-write on the record—is the unofficial sequel to “You Make My Heart Beat Too Fast,” from the pair’s self-titled 2001 release. Bryan Owings’ swampy, pounding drum cadence offers a suitably primal pulse to a song about the giddy combustibility of sexual attraction. Buddy’s woozy, off-balance guitar solo reinforces the song’s love-stoned swagger. But the tune’s smirk dissolves all too quickly into piano-tinkling weeper “Don’t Say Goodbye.” (Incidentally, there’s another cut on the album called “Everytime We Say Goodbye.” And don’t forget the devastatingly gorgeous title track, “Chalk,” a duet between Buddy and Patty Griffin featuring the lyric, “You never even knew it when I said ‘goodbye.’”)
It feels uncouth to point out the relentlessly heartbroken narrative at the center of Julie’s songwriting—after all, she’s admitted to dealing with clinical depression her whole life—but there’s a stultifying gravity to the emotional landscape of this record that occasionally leaves you numb. Still, at the edges of the record’s most grey-cloud moments is the iridescent glimmer of vocal harmony, which may not be too far from human harmony.
AMG Review by Thom Jurek
Buddy and Julie Miller have been making records separately for over 20 years. During that time, however, despite playing on one another's recordings, this is only the second one they've made collaboratively. Written in Chalk is steeped in American music tradition. Whether it's country, blues, boozy swing, or rock, this husband-and-wife duo lays it all down with authenticity, great humor, and honest emotion. They recorded the set at their home studio in Nashville, with help from old friends like Brady Blade, Matt Rollings, Chris Donohue, John Deaderick, Jay Bellerose, Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, and the McCrary Sisters, as well as some new ones, including Larry Campbell and Robert Plant. Julie wrote eight of these dozen songs. They are among the most sophisticated and emotionally resonant of her career — and that's saying plenty. The album opener is the devastatingly beautiful reminiscence "Ellis County," with Buddy's lead vocal looking back to "...when all we could afford was laughter/And two mules instead of a tractor...where there was nothing left to throw out/When there was a light that wouldn't go out...." With Campbell's fiddle adding the high lonesome of Appalachia in the track, one can imagine Levon Helm singing this song, but it's so much more effective with Buddy and Julie. Julie Miller also writes about heartbreak in a singular way. She avoids clichés and, when singing her own songs, doesn't need to over-emote because the truth of them lies in her lyrics and soft expression. Instead, she inhabits her lyrics fully, and one can feel the weight in them as they come up from the depths of the pierced heart of her protagonists and resonate in the mournful grain of her voice.
Julie helps out on two such songs, "Don't Say Goodbye," the single most devastating song on the record, and the resigned loneliness of "Chalk." In her song "Long Time," Julie's blues-drenched vocal brings to mind a young Rickie Lee Jones, but without the sass and swagger. For Julie Miller, these lyrics and her melody carry all the power they need; her delivery allows them to assert themselves — and they do authoritatively. The smoky, boozy trumpet solo by Kami Lyle is another highlight. The pair wrote "Gasoline and Matches," which offers an honest and humorous view of a mismatched couple who nonetheless find themselves knitted inseparably together. The evocation of taut finger-popping jump jazz and blues suggests the loungey early stylings of Tom Waits, but the guitaristry belongs to Buddy alone. Plant duets with Buddy on a gritty, slithering bluesy version of Mel Tillis' "What You Gonna Do Leroy." His rootsy vocal is in perfect keeping with Gurf Morlix's lap steel and Stuart Duncan's fiddle. The closing track on this set is another cover, but this time its spiritual resonance is profound. Julie sings both background and harmony vocals with Buddy on Leon Payne's underappreciated classic "The Selfishness in Man," to send the recording off as a haunted reflection on sin. Written in Chalk is a welcome return by one of American music's great — if under-recognized — duos. Buddy Miller's production and guitar work have been well documented on recordings and in the critical vernacular, as have Julie Miller's songs. But together, they are an unbeatable combination and this album is the indisputable proof. Roots music is alive and well, and is being served up red hot here.
a
