Melissa Carper and Theo Lawrence Bring Their New Country Duets to Nashville
The Austin-based pair played songs from their forthcoming album Havin' a Talk at Analog at Hutton Hotel, their first Nashville show since recording it here.
By Brianna Jackson ·
"I don't know why we have so many lying and cheating songs on this album," Melissa Carper told the crowd at Analog at Hutton Hotel on Thursday night, speaking from beneath the wide brim of her hat. Infidelity and distrust have run through country music since its earliest days, and Carper's repertoire honors that tradition with the kind of tunes a listener might once have heard on the radio at 650 WSM.
Carper, a singer-songwriter and stand-up bassist originally from Arkansas and now living in Austin, Texas, took the stage dressed in a style more often seen on Dust Bowl ranch hands or honky-tonk players. She was joined by fellow Austin transplant Theo Lawrence, a songwriter and guitarist who grew up in Paris, France. Analog sits in a hotel just up the street from Nashville's honky-tonks, which made the setting close enough to the part.
The two have been writing together since 2023. They spent the end of last summer in Nashville recording at The Bomb Shelter with Andrija Tokic, a producer whose credits range from The Alabama Shakes to Jay Reatard and The Outlaw Lovers. It was the fourth time Carper had made a record with Tokic there. Thursday's performance was the first time the pair played the new songs in Nashville since those sessions.
The weather did not help attendance. Tornado sirens had sounded through the previous night and flash flood warnings lingered through the day. Even so, the room drew a larger crowd than might have been expected, and it was already bopping along to country acts Mose Wilson and Hannah Juanita, who opened the evening. The two have built separate careers but perform together often. They worked a few newly recorded duets into their set, and Wilson announced that his new album is due in July.
Carper and Lawrence began with "Thank You, but No Thank You," the first single from their album Havin' a Talk, which is forthcoming on Lawrence's own Tomika Records. The song combines clever wordplay, sweet harmonies and lively fiddle. The set moved between each artist's solo material and the songs they have developed together over the past two years.
Carper's brash, playful songs tend to stick in the listener's head, while Lawrence's vintage croon recalls both Johnny Horton's twang and the countrypolitan polish of Ray Price. Their band included Lawrence's fellow Frenchman Thibault Ripault on second guitar, drummer Camille Lewis of Austin's Sentimental Family Band, and fiddler Katie Shore, with Lewis and Shore each singing a number. Keyboardist Emily Gimble noted that her grandfather once played with Bob Wills, then took the lead on her own version of Wills' "A Sweet Kind Love."
The material draws clearly on country music of the 1950s and '60s without slipping into the caricature that gives some revivalists a bad name. Not every song deals with cheating and lying: one covers vacation destinations, and in another Carper and Lawrence compete for the same woman's affection. The two trade sharp but good-natured jabs, and their rapport was evident in their stage banter and stories about writing together.
The performance suggested a strong creative partnership, and the full album, by this account, cannot arrive soon enough.
Originally published by News Media House · Source: Nashville Scene
