The journey of how one artist leads you to another is really quite a magical thing. Take how I made it to Rett Madison for example: after hearing rave reviews for Ruston Kelly’s debut album, I checked it out and fell in love; I was then lucky enough to catch Kelly on his 2019 UK tour, on which the extraordinary Katie Pruitt opened for him; in 2023, Pruitt added guest vocals to a new duet version of Madison’s song ‘Pin-Up Daddy’. I didn’t even need to finish listening before I was searching out the titular album it came from, and as soon as I got to the searingly confessional ‘Shame is a River’, I knew she was going to become one of my favourite artists.
Madison grew up in West Virginia with parents who exposed her to music by the likes of Fleetwood Mac, Prince and Billy Joel from an early age, and by just five years old she was taking voice and piano lessons. Like so many others, she started writing songs during her teen years to express her feelings, and went on to gain a partial scholarship to study music at Northern Michigan University before being offered a place to study songwriting at the University of Southern California. She only stayed there for two years, but its location meant she went on to become part of the bustling Los Angeles singer-songwriter community and play venues like legendary Hotel Cafe.
When listening to “Pin-Up Daddy”, Madison’s debut album released in 2021, you will be introduced to an artist who is not just largely autobiographic, but does it in a raw, truthful way that is a true privilege to witness. “Momma used to paint my cheeks rosy red / Teased my hair as high as the mountains for the county pageants / Twisting both my ankles just to lose the beauty contest”, she confesses on the title track, an exploration of gender roles and expression, but also a loving tribute to parents who supported all aspects of the person she grew into: “Mamma never said I was second-best / She loved her tomboy in a sequin dress”.
One theme that is particularly prevalent throughout Madison’s music is her mother’s struggles with mental health and addiction, and her tragic suicide in 2019. The final track on “Pin-Up Daddy”, ‘Don’t Know Better ‘til You Do’, speaks of the guilt Madison felt after the loss of her mother (“My mind goes blank at our last fight / I cried when the news broke that night / I was waiting on you to make things right / I admit that pride gets my tongue”), wishing she had done more, and most heartbreaking of all, it ends with the last voicemail her mother ever left her wishing her health and happiness for the New Year.
Madison’s second and most current album, “One For Jackie”, is a crushing portrait of the grief she suffered after the loss of her mother (the titular Jackie). “Waking up without you is waking up in hell / I’ll never meet you at forty-eight / You won’t cry on my wedding day / You’ll never hear my children say your name,” she utters tremulously on ‘Jacqueline’, while on ‘Flea Market’ she struggles with guilt: “I ask myself what could I have done / I was six, I was twelve, I was twenty-one / But it’s like I wake up / With my hands wrapped around a gun”. Madison takes on difficult subjects with aplomb, there are two songs which she tackles one of the hardest subjects of all: sexual abuse, namely that which her mother suffered as a child. The first, ‘St. Luke’s’, finds her imagining running into her mother’s abuser at the funeral, while the second, ‘One for Jackie, One for Crystal’, takes things even further becoming Madison’s own murder, revenge fantasy: “I load my bullets in the pistol / One for Jackie, one for Crystal / Neither of them knew where babies came from / When he told them, we’re just playing”.
If you like your music sugarcoated and easy to swallow, then Madison might not be the artist for you, but if you like real subjects expressed with honest emotion and stunning vocals, then she might just become one of your new favourites, too.
