Two Sides to Every Woman/Musical Shapes

Carlene Carter/Blue Nun Carlene Carter is a country singer, with a little rock thrown in, thanks to her marriage to Nick Lowe. She is the daughter of June Carter. She has issued numerous albums over the 70s, 80s & 90s. Carlene Carter was her debut album from 1978 and features Nick Lowe, Brinsley Schwarz...	Stronger As part of country music royalty (the daughter of June Carter Cash and Carl Smith and step daughter to Johnny Cash) Carlene Carter has seen both the ups and downs of the music business and life. She's lived as the daughter of a legend and had her family chronicled in Hollywood fi...	Little Love Letters Backed by a band flush with aces--from the country side, Buddy Emmons, Albert Lee, and Roy Huskey Jr.; from rock, Howie Epstein, Benmont Tench, and David Lindley--Carter plays her strongest suit with her 1993 release. There's a commitment to her own material--fine songs like "Lon...	I Fell in Love The Stepdaughter of the Late Johnny Cash Made Issued this Comeback Album in 1990 after an Almost Decade Long Extended Recording Vacation after her Two Releases on the UK'S Stiff Label. Carter Made a Big Splash on the Country Music Charts with the Title Track of "i Fell in Love" a...	Little Acts of Treason A key to the underlying character of Carlene Carter's 1995 album is the presence of former NRBQ stalwart Al Anderson, who co-wrote four of the 12 songs with Carter and played lead guitar on eight tracks. Carter shares the NRBQ philosophy that traditional eccentricities are more i...
Hindsight 20/20 Includes CD, Case, Artwork!! Sticker on plastic case. Very Minor Scratches. Great Buy! Free Fast 1st Class Shipping!!	Jesus of Cool If you have a dog-eared copy of Nick Lowe's Pure Pop for Now People, here is your chance to revitalize. That 1978 record, an ingenious and melodic pop gem, is really the Americanized version of Jesus of Cool, Lowe's European debut, released the year after his departure from pub-r...	C'est C Bon	All I Intended to Be Emmylou Harris has always had a way with woe. On All I Intended To Be, she seems more maudlin than ever as she sings her way through songs about loss, heartbreak, even the odd funeral. Of course, this is the kind of material Harris has always been comfortable with, but as her car...	The Platinum Collection 2007 collection from the Country/Pop princess, daughter of June Carter Cash, step-daughter of Johnny Cash and ex-wife of Nick Lowe. Carlene recorded some great early '80s Roots/Pop albums then came back strong in the late '80s and '90s with her own brand of Country. This compil...

a note about Musical Shapes.....
This reissue, for me, is notable for the second album. Musical Shapes is the great lost Rockpile country album- excellent Nick Lowe/Dave Edmunds/Billy Bremmer stuff with Carlene's tough girl vocals. Two Sides is indeed an excellent album, but for my money, Musical Shapes is the gem in the collection.

a superb twofer from a perhaps overlooked artist...
Carlene Carter is perhaps best known for her ties to June Carter and Johnny Cash. June was Carlene's mother, and Johnny Cash would later go on to become Carlene's stepfather. Carlene has also been notorious for her troubled, hard-living personal life. She had some major commercial success with her early '90s comeback, but her excellent early work seems to have been badly overlooked. In October of 2005, Wounded Bird Records reissued Carlene Carter's first four albums. Seemingly to make them more appealing, they released twofers instead of each album on a single CD. However, being the sly marketers that they are, Wounded Bird clearly took into account that there has previously been a CD released that paired her 3rd and 4th albums, "Musical Shapes" and "Blue Nun" respectively, onto a single CD. So, what they have done is paired her 1st and 4th albums onto one disc, and paired her 2nd album "Two Sides to Every Woman" with 1980's "Musical Shapes". (It's fortunate that Wounded Bird didn't pair "Two Sides..." with 1981's weak "Blue Nun".) Anyway you look at it, this pairing of "Two Sides to Every Woman" and "Musical Shapes" makes for a CD that contains a wealth of great music. In particular, 1979's "Two Sides to Every Woman" is real stunner that can't be missed if you take country-flavored rock & roll seriously--it's a little-known classic that puts the likes of such future "country rockers" as Shania Twain to absolute shame. Not only does it happen to have one of the sexiest album covers of all time, but Carlene clearly upped the ante from her debut, and "Two Sides..." simply kicks ass all over the place--it's got the stomping "Swap Meat Rag"; the raging uptempo rocker "Lies" (written by Roger Troy & Nick Gravenites); the haunting minor-keyed ballad "Gold Hearted Lady"; and the roaring, ultra-catchy title track which sounds kind of like a disco-rocker with its catchy beat and string arrangement, but it rocks out devastatingly and has an infectious, impassioned Carlene vocal. The album also has the fun, lighthearted, rolling pop-rocker "Do It In A Heartbeat"; the sassy, riffy country-rocker "One Good Lover"; the memorable, tender and reflective "Old Photographs"; and the fine ballad "It's No Wonder (Why I Love Him)". The closing track is a version of the Elvis Costello composition "Radio Sweetheart" which has one of those damn endlessly-repeated fadeouts so characteristic of early Costello, but at least in this case it serves as a respectable 'anthemic' finale to the album. "Musical Shapes" isn't as exciting overall, but it's by no means less than respectable, and it has such moments as the album opening one-two punch of "Cry" and "Madness"; the venomous "Too Bad About Sandy"; and the highly catchy rockabilly-flavored "The Very First Kiss". "Two Sides to Every Woman" hasn't been released officially on CD prior to this, and it's an absolute must for any serious listener, containing some of the hardest-rocking country music you could imagine. Adding "Musical Shapes" makes this CD even more valuable. Overall, a superb twofer.