Susan Cattaneo lays out grand Americana roots vision on Haunted Heart CD

Susan Cattaneo’s latest Americana roots album Haunted Heart is a fulsome visionary work. Catteneo offers several human dramas in her lyrics while serving up her smooth timbre in a variety of crisp, roots musical settings. She sprawls her authentic beauty over naturalistic sounds capes conjured by pedal steel, lap steel, slide guitar, Hammond organ, Wurlitzer piano, transistor organ, and many other instruments that offer a pristine sound and emotive joy or sorrow.

Belting out her meaningful chorus on “Abide,” an ode to the dust belt misery of the 1930s, Cattaneo soars over a bristling organ and gritty acoustic guitar. Yet, it’s her tasteful pauses between verses that gives this as much lift as the music. It’s a treat to read the image laden lyrics while following the instrumentation and voice. Cattaneo has got a lot going on in this song, and every bit of it is moving, stirring, and movable. A sense of time and actions plays out this human drama that the music makes you feel even more dramatically.

The lilting pace and fulsome vibe of “Lorelei” fills up the motion picture story images about twin sisters who are born to a tragic fate. A breezy country roots feeling belies the violent trauma in the lyrics. Cattaneo develops the contrast well. Her heavenly sustains and a gently picked guitar beneath don’t even hint at what’s going on lyrically, and that makes the story ever more frightening.

Cattaneo rolls out the thumpy, traveling beat and gypsy flavored honky tonk on “Worth The Whiskey.” Her gravelly timbre ignites a passionate tale of a woman who enjoys knowing that a no good former lover is drinking himself stupid over her. She builds up to raw, husky rasp that makes her sound like one tough mama, tough hearted that is. Her backing band builds a solid, tasteful wedge of stomping roots rock beneath her fiery croon. There’s an undeniable Tom Waits influence going on, and this songwriter uses her influence well.

Listeners get an even strong impression of the world Cattaneo likes to write about in “Revival,” a testament to her views of people who supposedly testify to the gospel truth. Here she questions the soundness of people who find God in a huge, traveling revival tent. She never beats you over the head with her message. She just lets it unfurl with details as she goes along. A lean lap steel guitar rings out its lonesome melody and it echoes through a barren landscape. Even if Cattaneo didn’t mention Kansas in the beginning, that guitar alone could establish the home on the range setting.

In some songs Cattaneo gives the listener more than what appears on the surface. “Lies Between Lovers” plays out with gentle country aplomb. Organ swirls percolate up unobtrusively. The rhythm section moves it forward smoothly. An electric guitar eases out its brittle melody. Over that mild roots backdrop Cattaneo sings it smooth, flowing, easy-going, like she’s accepted the devastation of a failed marriage. Yet, she fills her song with a short story writer’s details and lets those lyrical touches carry the weight of the song’s drama.

“Memory Of The Light” is a down tempo number with a tapestry of small working parts. Pedal steel plays a honky tonk line of beauty that keeps affectionate pace with Cattaneo’s graceful, tuneful vocal melody. Her description of loneliness and abandonment and her careful, heartfelt delivery make you feel all that she’s lost. The backdrop is mournfully beautiful as the singer recounts all she has lost.

Another mellow country-tinged down tempo number is “Queen Of The Dancehall.” a lyrical reflection of a woman who fled for her life from an angry, drinking man. Her life shines when she hits the local dance floor in the evenings yet she refuses to get close to any of her dance partners. Cattaneo brings this story character to vivid life with her warm, respectful vocal. Subtle touches from the guitars, piano, rhythm section underscore the lonely, melancholy life this woman leads. All of the musical elements come together to paint a picture just perfectly, even though that picture isn’t a pretty one. It’s this singer’s ability to put these contrasting themes together and her band mates’ skills that make it work perfectly.

“Barn Burning” brings Cattaneo and her band smack dab back into solid roots rock territory. The backbeat here is amazing, three-dimensional, fulsome, with an extra mule kick added after the main beat. It forces the band to rock right out with precision. Edgy guitars strut their melodic finesse around the beats, arriving at something in between rockabilly energy and early rock and roll aggression. Cattaneo gets belty here. Her urgency is something she makes you feel as well as hear. The characters in her short story form song structure are losing one of their precious local barns, a structure they’re used to seeing everyday, one that provides for their daily needs. John Cougar Mellancamp’s “Scarecrow” come to mind, as people lose something of an immeasurable spiritual value: “The light of dawn brings the smoke/Like a body giving up the ghost/Wood like burnt out matches down low/Ash and broken hearts/This is who we are/A barn burning.”

Title track “Haunted Heart” is a slow dance number that echoes early 20^th jazz vocalists in Cattaneo’s easeful emotive and vocal range. She simply caresses this one as it travels along a path brushed for her by gentle instrumentation peppered with pretty sustains. Her lyrics perfectly describe the emotional leftovers we have when a relationship ends: “Wish I could wish my way out of the dark/Out of this haunted heart.”

Cattaneo becomes more bitter, lyrically, in “Done Better,” a tale of the scattered remnants of a failed marriage. She’s not quite ready to forgive and forget here. A forlorn piano sets the scene as Cattaneo joins forces with her incomparable producer Lorne Entress on the harmony vocals. There is realness and roots and substance in her chorus. Around her voice are flinty guitar melodies that pour out their tender emotive notes to the emotional gravity of the song.

“Ingenue” is a gentle compassionate look at a young woman who dares to breakaway from her family’s expectations. This move gains her independence, but it comes with a cost. Cattaneo caresses her lyrics with a smooth touch. She brings the people in her story to three-dimensional life by letting her lyrics breathe, speak for themselves. It’s uncanny how this singer pulls that off in each of her mellow, down tempo numbers.

“John Brown” shows some more of Cattaneo’s Tom Waits influence. Dark, edgy guitars crawl with the menace of rattlesnakes across the soundscape. A little thumpy drum work forces this song toward its tragic fate. A haunting minor key piano echoes with foreboding. Cattaneo emotes over that musical tapestry to describe John Brown’s last few minutes in this world, and it’s eerily effective.

Cattaneo officially closes out her album with “How A Cowboy Says Goodbye,” a number reminiscent of early 20^th century country music. Brittle organ contrasts with pretty pedal steel to conjure a home on the range feeling. Cattaneo, her vocal melody as gentle as a coo, milks this goodbye song for all the tenderness its worth.

A bonus track written by Cattaneo’s keyboardist Kenny White closes out with some jazzy, nuanced piano tinkling. Quietly reflecting the mood and timbres of the previous songs, it’s a nice little instrumental footnote to this album. Cattaneo isn’t flying solo here. Here band also includes Kevin Barry, Lyle Brewer, Richard Gates, and Marco Giovino. Guests include Scarlet Keys, Kristen Cifelli, Stu Kimball, Jimmy Ryan, and Duke Levine.

Cattaneo certainly has much to be proud of here, as does her producer Lorne Entress, and everybody else involved. This album reaches high and it usually hits its mark. It’s a visionary work by an artist who has several tales to tell about life in an America most of us have forgot, and she uses many nuances of the Americana roots genre as colors to paint her masterpieces. This is a hugely successful work and fans of roots, country, blues, oldies rock and roll and everything in between should purchase it immediately.

www.susancattaneo.com

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