Joyfully keeping the faith.
It’s one thing to form a band full of talented women, it’s another to create an expansive collective along the Pacific coast of over a dozen women in bluegrass, country, and Americana and put out a sensational album. Ashleigh Flynn has achieved just this. In the band’s second studio album, ‘Good Morning Sunshine’ provides 11 tracks of consistently great quality.
Flynn’s influences are made clear from the get-go. ‘Drunk in Ojai’ draws upon the waywardness of Lucinda Williams or The Indigo Girls, but the harmonica solo is completely in its own league. And having been drunk in Ojai myself, it’s about as backwoods as Flynn narrates: “caught a ride from a fire and rescue driver whose name was Dutch”.
The album’s title track is where Flynn’s lyricism really begins to stand out. “I shine on the dark side / Where time fleets and shadows collide”, she sings, but while she may be the “underbrush”, darkness isn’t something to be feared.
Finding happiness through it all – in spite of it all – reverberates on the album. In ‘Deep River Hollow’, she commands, “place your hands upon my hips and turn me while the record skips”. Right after, in ‘Love is an Ember’, Flynn slows it all down. “Sometimes love is a soul no one can contain”, against a subtle steel guitar, is the core of the album’s message: true joy does not back down.
‘Much Too Proud’ and ‘Shake the Stranger’ feature as additional standouts, where Flynn refuses to be deluded by a paramour any further and struggles to dig deeper in an enigmatic lover, the latter being a fabulous cover of Patrick Haggerty of Lavender Country’s 1973 song, ‘I Can’t Shake the Stranger Out of You’. Throughout the whole album, the harmonica, fiddles, and guitar blends effortlessly with Flynn’s voice. The band isn’t afraid to vary their sound – ‘Bird in a Cage’ unexpectedly evokes a bit of Tori Amos and the final track, ‘Don’t Leave Me Lonesome’ is a flawless, upbeat bluegrass song.
Affectivity, whether in quiet, romantic moments or heavier ballads, bleeds through the entire project. It’s no wonder that the band has made radical joy their mission, particularly for women, LGBTQ, and marginalised people in America’s current climate. ‘Good Morning Sunshine’ has a powerful mantra and an incredible portfolio of pure talent.
