DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. Our rock critic, Ken Tucker, has been listening to new music, looking for something that's not just entertainment. He thinks he's found it in albums by two musicians, both of whom are influenced by country and folk music, but who otherwise couldn't be more different. One is a relative newcomer, 22-year-old Ken Pomeroy. The other is a relatively old pro, 92-year-old Willie Nelson. Here are Ken's reviews of Nelson's "Oh What A Beautiful World," an album of covers of songs by Rodney Crowell, and of Pomeroy's "Cruel Joke." He starts with Ken Pomeroy.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GREY SKIES")
KEN POMEROY: (Singing) Gray skies, birds that don't fly, hoping for a better life. You're stealing the grass from the hills, showing all the feelings you hide.
KEN TUCKER, BYLINE: It's easy to adopt the attitude that pop music is primarily entertainment, a pleasant distraction from whatever's going on in your life or in the world around you. Sometimes, however, you come across songs and performers who offer more than entertainment. They provide comfort, nourishment, reassurance. One of these artists is Ken Pomeroy, the 22-year-old woman whose voice began this review. Pomeroy has just released an album called "Cruel Joke." She's from Oklahoma, a Cherokee Native American. And her songs about farms and cowboys, sung with an acoustic country twang, mark her as one smart High Plains drifter.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FLANNEL COWBOY")
POMEROY: (Singing) Broke you like a mirror into pieces, a view of me staring back in disbelief. Honey, I swear I didn't mean to. Never loved someone like I loved you. Flannel cowboy, put your hand in mine. I get lost for days in your green eyes.
TUCKER: In that song, "Flannel Cowboy," Pomeroy seeks forgiveness from someone she wronged, in no small part because she believes they were meant to be together. It's typical of her approach on this album, which is full of complex emotions and urgent desires. Her narrators don't want to become isolated. They're not loners. They hope to quell fears through relationships that only strengthen during difficult times.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DAYS GETTING DARKER")
POMEROY: (Singing) You're talking too loud. They can hear you way up in the sky. With the days getting darker, coyotes are nigh. Time drags on, and there's nothing new to say. My mother keeps lying, saying there's no other way. Send me back to where I was before I knew how this felt. Take me, what I am no more. The devil's hiding in the Bible Belt, the devil's hiding in the Bible Belt.
TUCKER: I like the way Pomeroy's plainspoken verses open up dialogues with the listener. The conversational tone is something Willie Nelson perfected decades ago. It's what's made him perhaps the most intimate pop music interpreter since Frank Sinatra. These days, age has shortened his breath and thinned out the timbre of his voice, but it's still a quiet miracle that draws you in close, as on his version of Rodney Crowell's song "What Kind Of Love."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHAT KIND OF LOVE")
WILLIE NELSON: (Singing) I'll give you the best I can give you, baby. That's all I can give. And we'll live it the best we can live it, baby, as long as we live. What kind of love never turns you down? What kind of love lifts you off the ground, turns your life around? What kind of love makes you go out in the wind and the driving rain? What kind of love runs through your heart with a pleasure so close to pain? What kind of love? Only this love I have.
TUCKER: In the past, Nelson has recorded other album-long salutes to some of his favorite songwriters and singers such as Ray Price and Roger Miller, and Lefty Frizzell. This one feels a little different. The best moments here are when he takes hold of some of Rodney Crowell's more recent songs, not the hits. These are reflective, contemplative compositions. Like Ken Pomeroy's work, it's about appreciating people and rekindling connections.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I WOULDN'T BE ME WITHOUT YOU")
NELSON: (Singing) Sometimes I think about leaving, as if I had some place to go. I might even crank up the engine and roll down the street just for show. Nobody said it was easy, but that doesn't mean it ain't right. I don't want nobody else with me when it comes time to call it a night. So far, I've kept every promise, and this I'll continue to do. I love you like nobody's business, and I wouldn't be me without you.
TUCKER: There's a 70-year age difference between Ken Pomeroy and Willie Nelson, but I hear a similarity in their goals - to resist despair, to get us to look up from our phones and look into someone's eyes. They're both making beautiful music for tumultuous times.
BIANCULLI: Ken Tucker reviewed "Oh What A Beautiful World," by Willie Nelson and "Cruel Joke," by Ken Pomeroy. On Monday's show, journalist Elizabeth Bruenig joins us to talk about her haunting new Atlantic cover story about serving as a witness to state-sanctioned executions. We'll talk about what she saw, what it means and how covering the death penalty has shaped her faith. I hope you can join us.
(SOUNDBITE OF BILL FRISELL'S "EGG RADIO")
BIANCULLI: Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman and Julian Herzfeld. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli.
(SOUNDBITE OF BILL FRISELL'S "EGG RADIO") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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