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REVIEW: Nikki Talley at The Gnu’s Room

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(18 December 2012) AUBURN, AL – When it’s just right, music can carry us up above everything and put us in touch with something greater than ourselves. Tonight in Auburn, Nikki Talley gave that kind of performance.

After a long day at work and the longest run I’ve ever completed, I was dragging by the time 7 p.m. rolled around. I trudged out to the truck and drove over to The Gnu’s Room anyway to hear a singer who describes herself as a “ hardworking, energetic, mountain girl with a big voice.”

Well let me tell you, she’s selling herself short. Her voice isn’t big, it’s all-encompassing. It fills up a room and everyone in it. When she was singing it was all I could do to keep my feet on the floor and not drift up into the sky.

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Talley sang mostly her own songs and played acoustic guitar and banjo, accompanied on acoustic and electric guitars by her husband Jason Sharp. The Gnu’s Room has a wonderful, warm sound, so Talley’s voice needed no amplification. Honestly, with a voice as strong as hers, it would have been too much in that small space anyway.

It wasn’t just her voice, either. Her whole body made music, and her face conveyed every emotion and heightened every lyric. I pulled my gaze away long enough to look around the room and saw every single eye in the house completely focused on her. If she’d been a cult leader rather than a singer, we all would have been in trouble.

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She’s a strong songwriter, focused mostly on the themes that make the best country music universal – getting in trouble, finding and losing love, living on the road, trying to make ends meet. One of the standout songs of the evening was “Anna Marie,” a song in which she imagines her grandmother as a mermaid and a siren, calling sailors to their doom. It’s from her most recent studio album, Beautiful Charmer.

IMAG5850 Jason Sharp was no slouch, either. I’ve spent years listening to people who are extremely good at improvising, and Sharp should be added to that list. Despite looking like he was barely touching the guitar, Sharp managed to make himself heard with one fluid, melodic solo after another. He even added some lovely vocal harmony to a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire.” In fact, I could have done with more of his harmonies. And more of Talley’s sublime clawhammer banjo, too.

Speaking of covers, Talley took complete possession of Rod Stewart’s “Maggie.” In a just world, her version would be an enormous hit. (You can hear it for yourself on her album, To Be A Bird.)

I know I’m supposed to say some critical things so this review isn’t just one long gushing lovefest, but I’ve got nothin’. It was one of the most musical, most impassioned performances I’ve heard this year, and all I can say to you is if Nikki Talley comes to your town, cancel the wedding and go hear her.

(Nikki Talley: website | Twitter | Facebook)

Published in Auburn Music Music Review

4 Comments

  1. We here in her hometown of Asheville NC LOVE Nikki! She is indeed everything you say she is.

  2. Katherine Adams Katherine Adams

    Nikki is the best!

  3. George Philip Goodrich George Philip Goodrich

    Nikki can go from sweet to hot in a 1/4 beat. And yes I am stalking her, just for the sounds , mind you.

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