Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 23, 1995 TAG: 9509260096
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID BAUDER ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ALBANY, N. Y. LENGTH: Medium
Yet the most striking song on Carter's new album is a revealing ballad about a bottoming-out period in the singer's life that would sound perfectly in place next to one of Cash's brooding explorations of the psyche.
The song describes the night a half-dozen years ago when Carter sat on her couch with her wine and cigarettes and decided to change her life. She went into alcohol rehabilitation, ditched a bad boyfriend and recorded the first of two albums that established her as a country star in her own right.
Carter went into rehab partly because it was the only place she could think of where her boyfriend couldn't get in to see her.
``I was never a falling-down drunk,'' she said. ``I was a very happy drunk. I was a really happy party person. I was also happy when I gave it up. It's just that physically it started to interfere with my health and creativity.''
Until writing ``Change,'' she never had explored this moment in song. For that matter, she usually kept personal moments that crept into her songwriting well disguised.
She had intended the song, also her first effort at producing her own work, to not get beyond her personal collection. But associates persuaded her to let the public hear it.
Carter figures that not only will the song help others facing similar troubles, it might also round out her image.
``I think a lot of people think of me as that funny little girl that dances around,'' she said. ``That's fine, because I rock like hell. That's a real part of me.
``There's another part of me that's a woman and a mother, you know. I've been around a long time and have a lot of experience. Just because you have a big smile and wear short skirts all the time doesn't mean that you are dim, that you are not mature.''
And just because she writes one revealing song about a personal watershed doesn't mean she will fill a record with them. The varied ``Little Acts of Treason,'' with three songs co-written by ex-NRBQ guitarist Al Anderson, may be her most consistent LP.
``I don't really have that much dark stuff to talk about for a whole album,'' she said.
As might be expected for the granddaughter of Maybelle Carter, daughter of June Carter Cash and stepdaughter of Johnny Cash, the album is a family affair.
She duets with her father, Carl Smith, on ``Loose Talk,'' a song that was a major hit for him in the 1950s, and employs her 23-year-old daughter, Tiffany, as a backup singer.
Carter is used to singing with her mother and Johnny Cash. But she never had a chance to see her father perform before he retired from the music business to raise horses and be with his family.
``I was not intimidated so much as in awe,'' she said of the duet, ``because it's a side of him that I just don't know. I have always known that he was extremely charismatic and that he was a really huge star. But I have never known my father in that capacity.''
She sought for years for the right song to sing with her dad, writing several and rejecting them before settling on ``Loose Talk.''
``It was one of those things where I didn't want to look back later in my life and say, `God, I wish I had done that,''' she said.
Tiffany, a budding singer, helped her mother on background vocals on the album. Carlene usually did them herself, but was feeling pressed for time.
``Before we started, I said, `Look, you can't get upset and you can't get mad at me if I tell you you're flat or sharp, or you're not doing the right part, or that you're fired.' She said, `I know, Mom,''' said Carter, who was pleased with her daughter's work.
She recently had her first chance to be a real stage mother when Tiffany took her electric guitar on a California stage and sang four songs that she had written. Imagine how nervous Tiffany must have felt with her country star mother and Carlene's boyfriend, Tom Petty bass player Howie Epstein, in the audience.
Carlene had one of those uncomfortable moments of epiphany: She had become her mother.
``I came down with an enormous pocketbook, and if you ever met my mother, you'll know she has an enormous pocketbook,'' she said. ``I had a tuner, extra strings, picks, I had everything in there - Advil, Tampax - everything that could possibly go wrong. I was completely my mother.''
by CNB