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In your teens and 20s, there’s a pervasive feeling that love and having your shit figured out will undoubtedly happen for you in some distant future, manifesting out of nowhere—or somewhere, depending on your style of falling in love and problem solving.
On Rollercoasters, The Barbaras remind us it’s okay—and often more fun—to not have your shit together. Instead, they endorse a lifestyle of falling in and out of love, and falling in and out of lust, while staying in love with yourself, and who you are perpetually becoming. And flashing your boobs!
Refreshingly young and femme, The Barbaras’ deceptively complex take on twang country—a genre notoriously rife with misogyny, racism, and homophobia—fight the good fight with their expansive wit and charm, self-assurance as personal growth, and harmonies not heard since The Judds sensational 1984 album Why Not Me.
Like The Judds, The Barbaras are fronted by two femmes from one musical family. Not mother-daughter as is the case with Wynonna and Naomi, but two sisters: Sallie and Weezy Ford. Recognizable by name and vocal range, Sallie Ford exploded onto the scene after she moved to Portland from North Carolina, forming the now (sadly) defunct Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside, releasing their debut EP Not An Animal in 2009.
Now co-leading The Barbaras with her sister Weezy, the band is composed of some big names in Portland country and indie: Mark Robertson of Corbett, Oregon’s Littlepage Recording keeps the band’s backend strong on bass, alongside Buddy Weeks of Jenny Don’t & The Spurs, and Haven Multz Matthews of Silver Triplets of the Rio Hondo on the skins. Longtime Ford collaborator, Jeff Munger lends his perfectly laidback guitar plucking to the stew, with James Owen Greenan of The Cedar Shakes bringing that real country twang on steel guitar. Bob Reynolds of The Melody Makers is also all over the album playing the gamut of percussion.
Sallie’s vocals open the motley crew’s sophomore album, Rollercoasters, by singing “I don’t want to own you / I just want to love you / I know that I know you / You ain’t perfect / We’re all fucking flawed.” From the very first notes of the album, it’s clear The Barbaras aren’t here to fuck around. They’re here to create narratives forged in the heart and in the saddle, and on top of messy sheets. Because their style of country music craftsmanship is expansive, topics covered in their lyrics touch on frameworks not often, if ever heard in the genre. You think Tammy Wynette and George Jones ever told each other they didn’t want to own one another?
Rollercoasters’ lead single, “Fool,” is a letter to a jilted lover asking for “sweet forgiveness” with Weezy taking the lead. The classic country trope of stepping out on a partner floods the nervous system of those who have been cheated on, though that may not be what The Barbaras are seeking vindication from. Weaving narrative firmly in the present allows for subjective insertion of why forgiveness is being sought. Did Barb step out on her man? Is it even a man we’re seeking forgiveness from?
The allowance of anyone’s personal frameworks to be laid atop of The Barbaras’ song-writing is country music story-telling supreme. Unofficially, all that’s needed for good country song-writing is three chords and the truth, both of which the band has in spades. Tell a truth, even if it’s not your truth, and build a song around it—don’t overcomplicate the narrative with hyper-specificity, allow the song to tell its own story. Patsy Cline ain’t Patsy Cline because she fixated on one thing; she wrote about love, and heartache, and God, and what it was to be a woman in 1950s and ’60s America.
Ascending to “Boyfriend Heaven” on their doo-wop ditty featuring tejano-style plucking and vocals, The Barbaras melt into a clap-along of unbelief. They just can’t fathom that they’re finally waking up to a boyfriend that, judging from the dreamy atmospherics of the song, is an anomaly in the treacherous topography that is Portland dating—a being you have to die first to meet.
Not surprising in a city known for being a shit-fight for singles ready to dingle, this Portland band of lovers continues their clowning on, not only men and dating, but themselves as well. “Terrible Taste” and “Slim Pickins” are a one-two punch of wildly relatable songs speaking to the tragic, medically diagnosable disease of having terrible taste in men in a city barren of healthy (single) masculinity. Barbara is the doctor, Rollercoasters is the cure.
Late-album surf-country heater, “Tommy Teardrops” evokes a hot rod grease monkey with a tumultuous past, not unlike Cry Baby. Nobody knows where he got his name, he’s evasive about his past and never present, he gambles and smokes, and he’s got a wandering eye. The Ford sisters do well to stay away from Teardrops, but he does sound like an absolute smoke show.
Rollercoasters is out September 19 on Littlepage Recording. Catch the Ford sisters along with the rest of The Barbaras at their record release show September 19 with Jesco Payne & The Pain Killers at Showdown Saloon, more info here.
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Nolan Parker
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