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Courtney Patton - Carry You With Me





Courtney Patton makes music for grown ups. Her music is big, boisterous and loud at times, while being quiet, introspective and sensitive at other times. Her songs run the full gamut of emotions. She makes music from her worldview and speaks from her heart.  It is much like the best country music used to be back in the day.  Artists such as KT Oslin, Emmylou Harris, Roseanne Cash, Kathy Mattea, Suzy Boggus and Mary Chapin Carpenter used to make this kind of music.  Music that was real. Songs that spoke of triumphs, trials and all the slices of life.  Somewhere along the way that went out of fashion in the mainstream in favor of trap beats and never ending backroad parties.


Luckily, Courtney is part of a vibrant independent music scene that celebrates this type of music and nobody currently does it better.  Her 2022 album Electrostatic was my personal most played of the year and ranked high atop the collective Galleywinter list of best albums of that year. Many of the words I wrote three years ago still apply to Courtney Patton and her latest release, Carry You With Me.  It’s another collection of emotion.  Written partly in the isolation of Joshua Tree and some shifting tides in her personal life, CP leans into the curves life has thrown at her and created another masterpiece. 


Produced by Gordy Quist and Trevor Nealon from the Band of Heathens, played by an assemblage of A-list Texas studio cats and written by Courtney Patton, these songs yank your heart and then make your brain pay attention.  The vibe is chill, the music calm (minus the sirens on “What Is Done Will Be Repeated”).  The words roll out from Patton’s impeccably smooth and peerless voice.  There are gospel tinged overtones and jazzy standard feelings and this is the palette where Courtney Patton shines the most.


“Creature Comforts” could have just as easily come out 60 years ago as it did last week.  Saxophones mingle with steel guitar as Patton croons.  It’s a party for your ears.


“Spend my days pretending that I’m busy enough to never feel how far you’ve gone…” and “baby I was meant to be alone…and you can’t love me when I can’t remember how to smile.” is as vulnerable as it gets.  You’ll hear that turn of phrase and other similarly raw word strings on that powerhouse “Can’t Remember How to Smile”.


Much like the title track “Electrostatic” was the standout among standouts on the last album, Courtney Patton lays all her cards on the table with the bare souled title track “Carry You With Me”. It is a song about loss and moving on.  You take the lessons learned and let it inform your path forward.  Is it a death?  A divorce?  A breakup? It’s all of it.  This song hits everyone in the heart who has ever had a shared experience with someone and that experience comes to an end. You both keep living, but the imprints that relationship placed on your soul never leave.  Even when you end up down in the dust. 


Courtney Patton is opening up her heart and soul with each line and inviting you in to take a look around.  She’s not worried about what you think.  She’s comfortable letting whatever emotion is necessary wash over her, process it and then sing about it.  She feels like we all do, but she has a most exquisite way of turning pain, joy, loss and love into song. While this album doesn’t personally knock me down in the way Electrostatic did a a complete project, it is a companion piece of sorts.  Not necessarily a sequel, but from the same neighborhood.  It is most definitely worth your time.  Stream it. Buy it.  Go see her sing it live.  As long as Courtney Patton wants to make music, I will be there every step of the way.  It’s an adventure, a lesson and an emotional experience.  I encourage you to take the ride too.


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