As far as I can tell, every musician has a bunch of sad songs in their catalog. If songwriting is cathartic, that makes complete sense because it’s the difficult things in life that need to be worked out, not the happy moments. Austinite BettySoo professes to be the queen of sad songs, going so far as to suggest she has her own genre called “bummer jams”. She has a new album coming out later this month, If You Never Go Away, and is touring with James McMurtry to promote it (as well as sing harmony during his set).
The record opens with What Do You Want From Me Now, a Ralston Bowles number. It’s a slow, intense ballad, featuring (like most of the cuts) producer Will Sexton on guitar, with BettySoo wondering “why you can’t simply take me as I am.” Things Are Gonna Get Worse, another slower tune that practically presses the air out of the room, has McMurtry pitching in on harmony vocals and Broken Bones keyboardist Al Gimble on organ. Love, Fear, or Hunger has a folk-ish style that I associate with much of BettySoo’s music. It’s a tome on jealousy where she “won’t count on a happy end, but anything is possible.” She exposes that same vein in What Would I Do, a pleasant little murder ballad.
BettySoo’s comments about only writing sad songs are sometimes overstated, as evidenced by several lighter tracks on the album. Light It Up talks about knowing “how to set ablaze what’s left of us” but the horns brighten things up and the story reveals at the end it’s about other people’s issues and not, thankfully, her own. Human Echo is a 60’s bossa nova number that you can easily imagine playing in a Palm Springs lounge with the Rat Pack at the bar. Gold Stars relates the desire to be the kind of friend that’s always there, saying just the right thing to make you feel better. Gulf Road, a McMurtry-penned piece, is the closer. With him as the other half of the duet, it’s an interesting take on the song with less finality than the original.
Between her solo work, being a part of super-group Nobody’s Girl, and frequent collaborations with McMurtry and Chris Smither, BettySoo has a much wider range of vocal talent and songwriting skills than her self-labeled mistress of dysfunction propensity would indicate. If You Never Go Away is just the tip of that much broader iceberg, but it’s a great place to start to hear all of her musical strengths and powers.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.