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Carter Little Dare To Be Small music review
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Carter Little Dare To Be Small
Lobby Door Music, ASCAP
They say that as you grow older, events in your life change you as a
person
and mold you in who you will become. With Carter Little, various
musical
experiences and new hometowns helped to form his influences, creating a
blended end result of timeless charm. The album, cleverly titled, Dare
To Be
Small (Lobby Door Music, ASCAP; 2005) are genuine poetic thoughts
strewn
about a production studio’s floor to become what they are displayed
here.
Track listing:
01 Break My Heart
02 Fall
03 Kill My Darling
04 Delicate
05 Two Tons
06 Long Way Down
07 Goodbye Baby
08 Outside Looking In
09 Beauty
10 Began At The End
11 Slipping
In the beginning with ‘Break My Heart’, the setting for the song seems
most
suitable to flow from coffee house speakers, as Little sings with that
aching country twang to reflect a Pete Yorn and Rufus Wainwright
elegance.
‘Kill My Darling’ is upbeat, catchy, and contains great guitarwork, as
well
as a hook that sounds incredibly familiar... Those Southern souls
really
know how to make you shake.
In ‘Delicate’, Little hits the nail on the head of JJ72’s Mark Greaney
with
grainy, trembling vocals. And when ‘Long Way Down’ comes around, he
begins
to serenade about how his funeral will play out, in an almost
melancholy yet
bittersweet way without fear. Mature thoughts for such a young man, at
only
28.
You’re going to need time to adjust to the Chris Isaak guitars that
float
through each song, because occasionally, you’ll expect the songs to
become
poppier, but they stay right where they are. Little remains grounded
with
realism, and he doesn’t attempt to sing about things that do not exist.
One extensively long production put this album together, as the first
half
of the album was completed in January of 2004, and the last half was
finished just midway through the following December.
Those that are behind the scenes are a great handful, and number up to
ten
additional musicians. Their extra contributions of multiple harmonies,
cello, bass, drums, keyboards, guitars and that wistful piano help to
create
that full-fledged sound of a complete band, despite Little being solo.
A waltz into this album will show nothing more than Southern simplicity
and
the restless want of a rising tempo, but this is as good as it gets in
Little’s world. Distinguished production to speak at great lengths
within
his words.
