Album Review – Connie Smith’s “The Cry of the Heart”
You can complain about how country isn’t country anymore. You can drone on about how all the good ones are gone. You can look on languidly as all the legendary country music greats of the past slowly give way to time, and their once superior talents slip from their grasp—sullen from the realization that country music will never be the same.
Or, you can spin Connie Smith’s latest record Cry of the Heart, and be reminded that no matter how bad stuff has become in the mainstream, we still share this mortal coil with some of the greatest music talents from the past and present, and Connie Smith still has it, and as strong as ever, even at the age of 80, and even after nearly 60 years of performing.
Bold, confident, and clear-eyed, with a voice as striking as it was when she first broke onto the scene in the 60’s, Connie Smith puts her superior and apparently timeless talents to work on eleven songs on her first album in 10 years. Don’t fool yourself into thinking the only place left to hear the classic sounds of country is in some hipster bar in east Nashville. Connie Smith is still here, and she doesn’t have to emulate or revive anyone’s sound. She just has to be herself.
Collecting compositions from songwriters such as Dallas Frazier—who Smith has collaborated with an incredible 72 times—an old Billy Walker tune from 1966 called “A Million and One,” and writing a couple of originals with her hubby Marty Stuart (“Here Comes My Baby Back Again” and “Spare Me No Truth Tonight”), Connie Smith looks to counterbalance all of the cornfield parties of today’s country by bringing back the devastating heartbreak of classic country in this new album.
Just as much as Cry of the Heart is a Connie Smith record, it’s also important to present it as a collaboration with Marty Stuart. The third such album they have recorded collaboratively, you definitely hear Stuart’s fingerprints on some of the tracks, including the guitar on “Look Out Heart.” You also hear the actual fingers of long time Connie Smith piano cohort and fellow Hall of Famer Hargus “Pig” Robbins (they both were inducted together in 2012). The Hargus participation ensures that Cry of the Heart is kept cohesively within the Connie Smith catalog.
You can say that unlike many of Marty Stuart’s recent records that define the nexus between classic country reverence and retro cool, by working with so many classic tracks as Connie does here, this record does have a bit of a fuddy-duddy feel. It’s probably not the record to convert your Florida-Georgia Line-listening cousin to the classic side of country with. But that’s not what Connie Smith is aiming for anyway. Radical preservation, and keeping the flame burning is what she’s after, and accomplishes.
And with the way Connie rears back and summons such passion for these songs, it’s hard not to reciprocate that passion as an audience member. Healthy living, rooming with a spouse 17 years her junior helping to keep her young at heart, and remaining exuberant about the material results in a spirited and inspired effort throughout this album.
In 1970, an 11-year-old Marty Stuart saw Connie Smith perform at the Choctaw Fair in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Awe struck, he tells his mother that Connie is the prettiest woman he’s ever seen, and that he will marry her someday. 27 years later, Marty Stuart did marry Connie Smith. Marty knew back then what Cry of the Heart proves now: Connie Smith is one of the ages, and will not wither without a fight.
1 3/4 Guns Up (8/10)
– – – – – – – – – – –
Purchase from Fat Possum Records
Purchase from Amazon
wayne
January 4, 2022 @ 9:47 am
Connie sang “Here Come My Baby Back” recently on the Opry with Marty Stuart. It can be seen on youtube. It was fantastic!
RJ
January 4, 2022 @ 10:11 am
Thanks for the review!! Will check it out!
Here is where that one guy asks us if we have heard the new Jeremy Pinnell album and tells us that it rips.
Jim Bones
January 4, 2022 @ 3:38 pm
Pretty wild connie smith can still belt it out like that. Thought the album would be too “fuddy-duddy”for me, but actually rlly liked it. Whoever the steel player is on this album is ripping.
Which reminds me of the recent jeremy pinnell album, which also rips really hard
Kevin Smith
January 4, 2022 @ 7:11 pm
Bones,
Yes Gary Carter rips, hes the steel player and hes a master at it.
Pinnell: i caught him live a few months back. Generally i liked what he played. At one point i felt like i was watching a 70s Country outlaw in terms of the writing and tough guy attitude. The new record is good, but kind of a stylistic change from his previous ones. This one is more slick and produced. To me, hes all about the live show. He honestly gave off a vibe like Coe used to, you are sitting there thinking he would just as soon fight you if you looked at him wrong. And thats what l liked, the grit.
Harpo
January 4, 2022 @ 10:13 am
Music is best when it comes from the heart.
Kevin Smith
January 4, 2022 @ 10:36 am
Thanks for the review Trig.
Im glad you liked the album. I know, i lobbied too much on this one, wearing out my welcome, understood. Nonetheless, its a great review for a very worthy record.
For those who are interested, you can watch the Opry episode on Youtube where Marty and the Superlatives, Mandy Barnett , LeAnn Womack and others backed Connie, celebrating her song Once a Day and its inclusion in the Library of Congress. Connie got to sing four of the songs from the new album including the Haggard song which blew everyone away.
Steve
January 4, 2022 @ 11:16 am
Great review – thanks for giving Connie the exposure and ensuring she is not lost in the shuffle. She and Marty have taken “cool” to a whole another level.
As this blog shows daily, country music is not dead;
you just have to know where to find it.
Luckyoldsun
January 4, 2022 @ 11:37 am
That marriage struck me as a bit freaky when it happened (Maybe I have an unfair prejudice), but Marty and Connie are going to hit their silver anniversary this year, and he definitely revived her music career, as well.
Di Harris
January 4, 2022 @ 4:55 pm
I know what Marty was thinking …
He found a gold mine of love with Connie.
My husband was 17 years older than i.
I was a baby, when he was a Marine in Hawaii, in the late 1950’s.
After the fbi guy, swore would Never marry again. Had had enough of a**holes.
So along comes Steve, the ISP, Indiana State Police guy. Great friend of 27 years. We lost his Beautiful wife to cancer.
So Steve, comes out to Oklahoma panhandle 3 times in 3 years, and we headed to New Mexico, listening to Stuart Woods books on tape, laughing, singing, just enjoying each other’s company. Great restaurants, fun hotels, etc.
Lo and behold, in Dec. of ’16, there we were, in the gazebo, at the Bradenton, Florida courthouse, getting married. He scared me to death – because during the vows he had me locked into his eyes, & he was just daring me to look away – telling me he was all in.
Being unconditionally loved is the most amazing gift of all.
The only way i survived his heart attack and death, was knowing the He Knew on the day he died, that he was 100%, Positively & Unconditionally Loved.
Blockman
January 4, 2022 @ 7:21 pm
Oh you stole him from his dying wife. How sweet.
Di Harris
January 5, 2022 @ 12:11 am
: D
Wow, you are an ass, aren’t you.
Charlotte had been gone a little over a year, before Steve headed out to Oklahoma.
Blockman
January 7, 2022 @ 9:05 pm
I’m sorry for your loss.
Di Harris
January 7, 2022 @ 10:24 pm
Blockman,
You, i and everyone else has had a shattered heart at one time or another.
We all have our story(ies).
Thank you for the sentiment.
Genuinely hoping that you will have joyful things to look forward to this year.
18 Dales and a dozen comments
January 4, 2022 @ 9:17 pm
Stop all this foolish wishing
He ain’t worth missing
I know your head is turning
I know your heart is burning
Girl, you gotta listen
Don’t you know he ain’t worth missing
Big Tex
January 4, 2022 @ 11:56 am
I believe it was Waylon who said something to the effect that, down deep inside, every male singer in Nashville wants to sound like George Jones and every female singer wants to sound like Connie Smith.
Erik North
January 4, 2022 @ 8:03 pm
And then there’s Dolly Parton’s famous quote “There’s only three female singers in the world: Barbra Stresiand; Linda Ronstadt; and Connie Smith. The rest of us are only pretending.”
Big Tex
January 4, 2022 @ 8:05 pm
Right!
Thanks for reminding us of that one!
Mama&Trains&Trucks&Prison&GettinDrunk
January 4, 2022 @ 12:00 pm
yEAh bUt HaVE yOU hEArd tHAT NeW jEReMy PINneL aLBUm it fUcckIN riPs Bro!
Side note, I’m glad you reviewed this album. Connie is a national treasure. We appreciate you Trig!
Kent
January 4, 2022 @ 12:11 pm
Thanks Trigger. Her voice is really strong for being 80. She does not know it, but she has an apprentice in Sweden but she has ( sadly ) stopped singing at “only” seventy two.
WuK
January 4, 2022 @ 2:01 pm
Isn’t she amazing? Definitely country and real class.
Keith Whitlock
January 4, 2022 @ 3:51 pm
Jim Bones sounding like a city boy with all this “album is ripping” and “rips really hard”.
wayne
January 4, 2022 @ 5:33 pm
When you compare to most of today’s female artist, both her talent and her presentation as an entertainer, well…….
trevistrat
January 5, 2022 @ 4:15 pm
In the immortal words of Eddie Stubbs: “Poise, Professionalism, Dignity and Class.”
John Potomski
January 4, 2022 @ 10:56 pm
I saw Connie Smith perform at the Grand Ole Opry at the 5000th Saturday night broadcast on October 30, 2021 and she was incredible
Her voice was as strong and as country as ever.
It was great to see her perform along with some other legends like Bill Anderson and Jeannie Steely
I have been going to the Opry since 1977 and have been blessed to have seen and sometimes met some of the legends in country music that have passed on.. Thank God Connie Smith is still with us to sing true country music .
Countryfan68
January 5, 2022 @ 4:16 pm
Wow, Connie’s voice sounds just as good as it did deacades ago, 2022 is starting out on some strong album releases, and hopefully the year will just keep getting better.
RyanPD
January 6, 2022 @ 7:08 am
The album came out last year, but this is a great review and album nonetheless.