It’s not that unusual for roots artists (blues, rock, bluegrass, country) to develop their sound and hone their chops in America before finding a strong audience in Europe. What’s much rarer is for a musician to find their musical calling in Europe before coming to the US to build their career. That’s just what Cristina Vane has done, though. Growing up in Italy, France, and England, she learned guitar and started writing songs as a teenager before becoming enamored with slide guitar one summer in London. After moving to America for university she found herself working at the famous McCabe’s guitar shop in LA, whereupon she expanded her repertoire into fingerpicking guitar and clawhammer banjo. You can hear all those influences in her newest album, Hear My Call.
Life on the road figures heavily on a number of cuts, no doubt impacted by the six straight months she spent traveling across the country on her crowd-sourced first tour. The opening cut on the record, Do You Want To Lose, is a fantastic intro to Vane’s slide guitar. It perfectly conveys the resignation that “it’s a long, weary road, but it’s the only one that gets you home.” That weariness also shines through in an ode to how life on the road sucks, Getting High In Hotel Rooms. Her guitar gets a little swampier in Coming In Hot, “like the vibe on Friday in a liquor store.” Little Girl From Nowhere leans to a rock and roll style, and while it doesn’t call out the road in particular it is about being a badass with no deep roots.
As much as I like the bluesy sound of her slide, she reminds you that just one facet of her catalog on several songs. The title cut is a bluegrass standout, and features Molly Tuttle on guitar and vocals. You Ain’t Special is a radio-friendly outlaw country number with Kenny Vaughn on Telecaster. Everything Is Fine is a driving rock, almost-punk track where everything is clearly *not* fine. Bronwyn Keith-Hynes helps on vocals on a fine country waltz, Whims Of Good Men. I suspect she also took some uncredited turns on fiddle on the country and bluegrass pieces.
For an album that stretches from sizzling blues to twangy bluegrass, the record is surprisingly cohesive. As I pondered that I realized Cristina Vane drew from the same spirit of Delta blues that inhabits everything from Robert Johnson to Elvis to Duane Allman. To experience your own virtual road trip across the roots of American music, you’d be hard pressed to do better than hitting play on Hear My Call.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.