Outskirts of Country Blog

Bishop pushes the Outskirts limits

Rick Teverbaugh  |  July 28, 2009

I had a lot of debate about what to do about Bonnie Bishop's album Things I Know, which is coming out on Aug. 11. It didn't have anything to do with whether this music deserves to be heard as you'll find out in a graph or so. It had more to do with my own perception of exactly how far do the "Outskirts" of this country town extend?

After a bit of evaluating my position and this music, it seems that the limits begin and end where I say so, much like the John Cleese character Sheriff John T. Langston in Silverado.

So Bishop is in. After all, if Robert Earl Keen likes her, who am I to argue? Bishop and her music reminds me a lot of Bonnie Raitt. Her voice has a gruff brassiness that is rare and to be cherished. She is equally capable of using it to burn the paint off a well-polished song or to smooth out a long stretch of emotional highway.

It doesn't take long for Bishop to take control. The first cut is Think I Will, where she gets to cut it loose and is followed by a much softer Lucky Ones. She has released a single, Virginia, to radio. She is planning to tour behind this product both acoustically and with her band. She co-produced the effort with guitarist and writer Will Kimbrough. I hope to hear more from her and I hope her tour will make it up to Indiana someday. No matter what the label for this mix of rock, roots, country, blues and soul, it is worth hearing. Get a taste right here.

To let me know where the "Outskirts" boundaries should be, drop me a line.