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Some artists wait for a great record to eventually come out of their efforts. Other records wait for their respective artists to become great enough to finally complete them.
When McHenry first began working on this batch of material with producer, co-songwriter, and key collaborator Dan McGee (of fellow Triangle-area garage country cohorts Spider Bags) over half a decade ago, the music scene acquaintances who merely admired each other's rock n roll outfits from a passing distance (McHenry then the defining force behind Durham's Dirty Little Heaters) couldn't possibly have known the gravity of the journey that lay ahead of their newfound friendship.
At the end of the day, Bad Girl is, by design, a singer's record. In the traditional sense, with its considerate balance of material written by her, for her by others, and/or by others all together, the collection as a whole is offered to us, in song, by a modern woman faced with the every-day trials of love and growth, and the pains that mark their passing. From the album-opening title track, a gender perspective-swapping garage-wop take on Lee Moses' timeless original, to the b-side's soon-to-be American standard "Concrete Roses," inked by McHenry herself and recorded live in one take - complete with Forbes masterfully playing brushes on a pizza box - without even having previously heard McGee's arrangement for it (after the tape stopped rolling, everyone wept), there's an almost cinematic quality throughout the long-player's narrative. It's the tale of a woman who tries her best to do good, to not be bad, but as we all know, life is rarely so black-and-white. It's what she overcomes along the way that gives her color - that not only gives her a voice, but strengthens it by giving her something to sing. And if you ask me, or just about any schmuck from Chapel Hill to Hollywood, we'd be hard-pressed to find another protagonist as easy to root for as our very own Reese McHenry - singer, survivor, Bad Girl.
Condition: NEW
TRACKING LISTING
SIDE A
A1 Bad Girl 3:36
A2 On The 45 3:22
A3 Drinking Lots Of Cokes 1:23
A4 Mexico City 2:46
A5 Leanin' On You 4:56
SIDE B
B1 Flower In The Dark 3:33
B2 Bomb 3:58
B3 Painter Man's Blues 3:12
B4 Concrete Roses 4:35
B5 The Rose Of Monmouth County 3:47
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