Nikki Lane
Highway Queen

When we talk about country music or country-western, we are obviously referring to a musical genre, but also and above all, to something that is still deeply rooted in American popular culture today.

As such, it always becomes difficult to draw a clear line in terms of what could be a simple definition of a musical genre (we're talking about sounds that can nonetheless vary and range from western ballads to bluegrass, from folk music to swing, honky tonk music, and outlaw country, the outlaw country of Walyn Jennings and Willie Nelson...) and a true cultural phenomenon that, on one hand, connects to the myth of Nashville, Tennessee, which has somehow simultaneously popularized it among a broader and international audience, creating at the same time a real record industry connected to it; on the other hand, it remains faithfully anchored to its historical folkloric roots and as such remains a reality tied to a world that we once would have defined as a 'frontier' and that today is much more likely a 'periphery'.

The point, anyway, is that the same myth of Nashville (also supported by myths from the American music world like Bob Dylan or Johnny Cash and celebrated in a wonderful film by the great director Bob Altman) clearly has different sides. For American music, the Tennessee city remains a gigantic source from which all listeners of the genre can drink, and this naturally concerns not only Americans but the inhabitants of the whole world interested in listening to country music.

This, in short, means that both artists and consequently 'record products' can emerge from Nashville that aim at a vast (huge) range of audiences, and artists that have a smaller following and that we could ideally reconnect to that current I defined as 'outlaw country', which Willie Nelson, who was one of the founders of the genre, continues to carry forward with incredible dignity and tireless productivity (listen to his latest beautiful album released on Legacy Recordings: 'God's Problem Child').

One of the new names is Nikki Lane. Born in 1983 in Greenville, South Carolina, with the name Nicole Lane Frady, Nikki has been living in Nashville for years, where she also owns a shoe store.

Compared in style to Wanda Jackson and Neko Case, she boasts the publication of three LPs to date, one of which, 'All or Nothin'' (New West Records, 2014), features production supervision and collaboration from Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys.

But there's an important name also in the production of this latest work, 'Highway Queen', also released on New West Records last February, in which Nikki Lane worked alongside Jonathan Tyler of Jonathan Tyler and the Northern Lights, who I understand to be not only her co-producer but also her current partner and fiancé.

Nikki personally wrote all ten songs on the album, which immediately received a good response in the USA. The album ranges from more typically country-western songs like '700,000 Rednecks' or 'Lay You Down' to folk ballads like 'Muddy Waters', 'Companion', which seems to have come directly out of the fifties, or 'Jackpot', which mixes the atmospheres of the Las Vegas imaginary with those of Serge Gainsbourg's writing, and 'Send The Sun', where instead Nikki somehow mimics the great old Bob Dylan. Then there's the romantic ballad 'Forever Lasts Forever Folk', which closes the album and is perhaps the greatest demonstration of Nikki's abilities as a songwriter and performer.

There are also more typically radio-friendly tracks like the boogie of the title-track 'Highway Queen' or 'Foolish Heart', in an album that overall certainly does not offer sounds that are difficult or far from that 'folk' of origins that I mentioned at the beginning, obviously revisited in light of contemporary times and cleaned of layers of dust accumulated on the piano and other instruments.

I find it difficult for this album to appeal to those not interested in these nuances of American music. Initially, I frankly found it irrelevant myself, but upon re-listening, in the arrangements and vocal nuances of our singer-songwriter, I found several interesting elements that ultimately made me like it and that at this point even make me suggest it to those who want and prefer at the moment an easy listening experience, with no 'intellectual' or overly cerebral pretensions.