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October 5th, 2007 @ The 5 Spot—Jewly Hight, CD Release Jewly Hight Brings the Soul, but the Songs Fall Flat Now that Jewly Hight is actively promoting her new CD and performing around town on a regular basis, a sad fact about Nashville's music critic community, which has always been the "big pink elephant in the room" that nobody is willing to discuss, must now be noted. The fact is, every notable music critic in this town (with the exception of Ron Wynn) is also a musician peddling their own music and songs on myspace. Do I need to list the numerous ethical problems this sort of incestuous/subjective/self-motivated journalism raises? (Even David Mead is writing album reviews now for American Songwriter, and yet Mead, as far as I know, hasn't abandoned his music career.) I trust my readers can figure these ethical quagmires out for themselves. So, having been present at Jewly Hight's CD release gig at the 5 Spot, I find myself in the awkward position of having to review a fellow music critic. The Nashville Scene praised her new record and promoted her CD release party as a critics' pick—hmmm.... In this same issue, the editor published two of Hight's album reviews/articles. But this is indeed the incestuously good ol' boy state of affairs in Music City -- and now that Hight is actively promoting her new CD, we can talk about the lack of objective music critics in this town, as well as Hight's uninspiring performance at The 5 Spot. I need to make a few things clear to my readers: I do not personally know Jewly Hight, nor have I ever written for The Scene (and I trust I never will after they get wind of this review), nor do I have aspirations of recording and releasing a CD — I'm a music critic who holds an MA in Philosophy. Back to the review. Hight has a powerful, soulful voice with a Reba McEntire look. Her vocals are impressive, pitch-perfect, and at times her vocal tone will remind you of Shelby Lynne. She sings confidently, loud and proud. Her music is upbeat roots/blues/soul, and her band deftly delivers the dirty Pentatonic blues scale with a touch of swamp. Unfortunately, the lyrics of the songs were impossible to make out, and Hight's loud and proud vocal style wore off after about the third song. As people slowly trickled out the front door leaving the room sparsely filled by the end of her set, it was obvious that Hight's songs were not connecting to the audience. The reason is that as good as Hight's bluesy howls are, her lyrics are not audible, and the emotion in each song extends about as far as her microphone, which she pretty much ate during the entire set (see photo). All great soul music is built around the emotion of the lyric -- and without the lyrics, growling and howling, no matter how soulful and pitch-perfect, begins to sound like one long uninspiring song. The record may be better, as I'm guessing the lyrics are audible on it. However, the live performance falls flat and grows old after about three songs. —Vincent Wynne |
