Brandy Clark Brings Incredible Storytelling to Little Rock

by Julian Spivey
Brandy Clark is one of the best singer-songwriters in modern country music releasing two of the best albums the genre has seen in the last few years with 12 Stories (2013) and Big Day in a Small Town (2016). She brought her terrific stories to The Revolution Room in Little Rock on Saturday, Feb. 10 for An Evening with Brandy Clark – a stripped down performance featuring her on vocals and guitar with another guitarist and bassist accompanying.
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Clark performed many of the best tracks from her two critically-acclaimed albums, while providing a few nicely sounding new songs during the show, as well.

She opened the show with her hilariously badass “Stripes,” about considering killing her cheating husband, but sparing his life because she hates stripes and doesn’t look good in orange.

She went from “Stripes” into the terrific title track of her 2016 album that showcases what life is like in a small town where every little thing gets around to all the citizens.

One of Clark’s best performances – and one of her greatest songs in general – came next with the devastating “Drinkin’, Smokin’, Cheatin’.” It occurred to me during this performance that this would be a great song for Dwight Yoakam, whom Clark has collaborated with and opened concerts for before, to record.

There was a portion of the show which Clark described as the substance abuse portion including fantastic performances of “Get High,” “When I Get to Drinkin’” (which appears on her live album), “Take a Little Pill” (one of my personal favorites of hers) and “Hungover.” The theme portion of the show seemed to go over well with the Rev Room audience.

Clark would perform a couple of new songs during the night that might pop up on a future album: “Favorite Lie” and “Apologies,” both of which sounded great, but then again there wasn’t anything during her set that didn’t.

Clark gets to the meat of real life in many of her songs with realistic lyrics that should make any other songwriter jealous of her abilities like “Three Kids No Husband,” a true modern-day masterpiece off Big Day in a Small Town.

My favorite performance of the evening was “Hold My Hand,” which is my favorite song of hers. It’s an interesting song of a woman running into her lover’s ex with her by his side and feeling like things might not quite be over between them. Its beauty is astounding. She followed this up with her only cover of the night, the aptly chosen “Good Hearted Woman” – a Waylon Jennings/Willie Nelson classic that any country music lover should know by heart.

A performance that really got the crowed energized was “Mama’s Broken Heart,” which Clark co-wrote with Shane McAnally and Kacey Musgraves and Miranda Lambert had a hit with in 2013.

Clark would end her excellent show with “Pray to Jesus,” a song about the two ways many people hope to succeed in life, by praying to Jesus and playing the lotto. Clark seemed truly honored when the crowd sang along on the final chorus.

While the crowd at the Rev Room on Saturday night was certainly eating out of Clark’s hand all night and truly fans of her music I was disappointed to see a small crowd for the venue. There has been much talk about sexism in country music over the last few years and I hate to say I’ve seen it in person at shows over the last couple of years. And, it’s not just a mainstream country music issue. I’ve seen artists like Turnpike Troubadours, Jason Boland, Hayes Carll and even newcomers like Colter Wall pack club style venues in Little Rock like the Rev Room and Stickyz, but when great female performers like Clark and Sunny Sweeney have come to town the rooms simply aren’t that crowded. Clark and Sweeney are no doubt on the level of these male artists, so it makes one question exactly what is going on.

Georgian singer-songwriter Rick Brantley opened the show for Clark and he’s a terrific reason as to why concertgoers should always pay attention to opening acts. I had never heard of Brantley’s name prior to the show and within a maybe eight-song performance he won me over as a fan. Well, in fact, it didn’t even take his entire performance. I was hooked on his music – great voice and lyrics – from pretty much the start. He performed great originals like “40 Days, 40 Nights,” “I Still Dream of Tumbleweeds,” “Claudette” and the randy “Red Boots” and slayed the audience with a fan-freakin’-tastic cover of Otis Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness” and to do Redding justice you really have to bring it. My only issue with Brantley’s set was the crowd talking over some of his performances – it was just him and his guitar – which was incredibly rude to the guy pouring his heart out and doing so well on stage.  

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