It probably won’t come as much of a surprise, dear reader, that I’ve never watched The Real Housewives Of Atlanta. If I had, I might already have encountered K. Michelle. As it is, my knowledge of Atlanta largely revolves around the Georgia Satellites and the fact that Karin Slaughter’s False Witness was set there.
Still, what interests me about K. Michelle isn’t the reality television, the restaurants or the various other business ventures. It’s what the Memphis-born singer is doing now. And what she’s doing is releasing her first country album.
“Jesus & Whiskey” is an interesting proposition from the off. It might be the prog fan in me, but I can rarely resist a spoken-word introduction, especially one which sets out its position quite as clearly as “Intro” does. “Fuck y’all” seems a reasonable summary. She’s going to do what she wants.
What she wants to do next, as it happens, involves yodelling. “Yodel” takes that most traditional of country devices and gives it a cheeky double entendre. There’s a sense of fun here, and a singer who sounds thoroughly comfortable with what she’s doing.
Produced by Kristian Bush, the record sees Michelle co-write eight of its nine tracks. Among her collaborators are ERNEST, Jordan Dozzi and Rocky Block, whose collective credits include Keith Urban, Morgan Wallen, Post Malone and Jelly Roll. She’s in good company, then, but there’s plenty of her own personality coming through. A Black woman who grew up on classic country, Michelle sounds entirely at home in the music.
“Blame Tennessee” makes it clear that you can take the girl out of Memphis, but taking Memphis out of the girl is another matter. Getting “drunk on a Friday” is on the agenda, and there’s an ease to this which makes it an inviting proposition.
Possibly the highlight, though, is “Damn Good Friend”. A slow builder with the blues running through it, it gives that mighty voice room to work. There’s no doubt whatsoever that she can find trouble, and she makes the prospect sound pretty compelling. My knowledge of her previous R&B and hip hop career is limited, but on this evidence she was a star.
The title track gets to the heart of the whole thing. Saturday night and Sunday morning are given equal weighting, and that feels like the point of “Jesus & Whiskey”: the same person can need both. Michelle sings it with enough conviction to make perfect sense of the argument, whatever your own views on either activity.
“Anything”, featuring Blush, brings more of the R&B into a ballad, and the shift feels easy. Those influences sit comfortably together, with the voice providing the connection.
“Handle On It” offers a fairly straightforward approach to keeping things under control. Put some whiskey on it. Whether that’s advice you’d follow is up to you, but it works well enough as a song.
The woman certainly loves a whiskey. “Jack Daniel’s” goes further, suggesting he’s the only man she’s ever loved. It’s a hell of a song, too, with Michelle finding plenty of feeling in the relationship.
Then “If It Ain’t Broke” closes things with a slinky, sultry ballad. She loves one of those almost as much as she loves a whiskey, and she knows how to deliver it.
It’s become something of a thing for artists from elsewhere to release a country record. There’s something particularly convincing about this one, though. You hear the connection to music she grew up with, as well as the experiences she brings to it now. Across these nine tracks, K. Michelle makes a statement of her own, and it deserves to be heard.
Rating: 8/10
