CD Review of the Week - Holly Golightly

Holly Golightly

Slowly but Sweetly

Damaged Goods Records

Maybe I’m a bit jaded—the last CD I reviewed was Gwen Stefani’s L.A.M.B., a crime against America—but for me, Slowly but Surely, Holly Golightly’s eleventh (eleventh!) LP represents what’s best about indie music today. Golightly’s tired, careworn voice can have a similarly draining effect on anyone listening, and it certainly isn’t for everyone. Nor is it one of those go-to discs you leave in your CD player. Even if you enjoy her sublime, ageless music, Golightly’s sweet pain requires a very particular kind of mood to be appreciated.

But it is what it is, and Golightly (which is, in fact, her real name) hits exactly the mark she shoots for. The disc is a blend of American roots music, with all the weight that it suggests: it channels jazz, country and blues with a spare post-electric (but pre-rock and roll) feel. The disc features omnipresent Silvertone-esque guitars channeled through what sounds like fuzzy vintage Fender Frontman amps. With a couple of exceptions, the songs are written by Golightly herself but sound like they could have come from the likes of Patsy Cline, Hank Williams or Loretta Lynn.

The production is just about as spare as possible; those twangy guitars are sometimes accompanied by hip-swinging bass or, on the excellent second track “The Luckiest Girl,” some cool Hammond Organ grooves, but the star of the show is always the leading lady’s voice. And a limited, small instrument it is; like Billie Holiday, Golightly’s singing respects its own limitations. But, also like the late Lady Day, Golightly’s strengths within that small vocal range shine unexpectedly brightly. The sound is sexy and sultry, weary and cigarette-burnt, and makes the gems on this CD seem like 50-year-old standards.

So much so, in fact, that the actual 50-year-old standards on the album, like Billy Myles’ jazzy “My Love Is,” fit in very snugly. That track is pure velvet, an upright-bass-supported masterpiece that channels pure melancholy joy. I’m a sucker for good lyrics, and Myles’ words are simple, desperate and content all at the same time. When Golightly croons perfect lines like “My love is a deep blue sea / So deep that I’ll never be free,” you get her immediately.

The lyrics on this disc are so good, in fact, that they make even the most depressing tracks worth listening to several times in a row. The album’s opener, “On the Fire,” seems so retro at first that it makes the “next track” button shine invitingly. But after I first heard the chorus, in which Golightly sings, “The diamonds you gave me still sparkle like diamonds / The things that you made for me glow / Turning to embers is all I remember / And all that you left had to go,” I immediately needed to hear it again.

This album is short, sweet and sad, and it lets Golightly’s art vibrate without cramping from grabby producers or nosy collaborators. She’s worked recently with the likes of Jack White, whose track “It’s True That We Love One Another” featured her as the third part of a musical ménage à trois with himself and fellow White Stripe Meg, but she’s still content to let her own talent speak for itself. And for the relative few who will be willing to give her sad soulfulness a chance, that should be very happy news.