Chrissy Coughlin - Artist Overview

Hear The Track Here

Like all humans, I guess I am a child of my times. I grew up in the musical heat of the 1960s (yep, that old) and obviously acquired certain tastes along the way. One of the tastes I never acquired was the American fascination with country and western during the 1970's and on. Even more so when faced with the rhinestone studded, glitz covered sham that Nashville has unfortunately had a taste for these last few years. I do like American country music, however, although I think the terms Americana covers it better. This to me is the REAL country voice of America. So what does all this have to do with Chrissy Coughlin, you might ask. Well, it's all about first impressions.

When I first checked her site in a drive by stylee, my heart plummeted because - for some reason - I instantly thought 'Nashville' Gawd knows why mate, but I did. Bad Gilmore, jumping to conclusions. Fact is, Chrissy is about as far removed from that situation as could be. I listened to a selection of tracks on here site over a couple of days and gained some great music in the process. It also showed me that here is a singer/songwriter as interesting to me (in a different way) as Kappa Danielson and Kristi Starr I reviewed a while back. Chrissy has that same style, no nonsense listen-to-me music that has something to say. As a rock animal, I instantly fell in love with Back To You, an incredibly assured rock track that shows Chrissy and her band (Tim Pike, Brad Hallen, Steve Bankuti, Kent Allyn and Cliff Spencer) have the chops and more. As radio friendly as I've heard Back To You is solid material in every way.

So Back To You establishes that Chrissy is a songwriter of note, and the other tracks burnish that fact. Look Ahead is a beautifully realised piano ballad. Sounds tame in black and white but the starkness and simplicity of this track is heart warming and it grows - oh how it grows.... Like a lot of great songwriters, Chrissy acknowledges that adversity gives us the best of our tracks on Watch Your Step, probably my favourite of the tracks on offer. Such a beautiful song in every way, arranged to perfection; it puts me in mind of the better Pretenders tracks. One of those moments, ya know what I mean? If I had been reviewing this track alone this would have gained an instant Must Have rating. Absolutely knockout. If, like me, you appreciated the raw simplicity of singer/songwriters like Kappa and Kristi, this is what they could sound like when backed by fine, seasoned musicians. Stunning.

MUST HAVE. Beautiful songs, beautiful music. Go. See.