Charlie Faye
Travels With Charlie (Wine & Nut Records)
Reviewed by Margaret Moser, Fri., Aug. 5, 2011
Charlie Faye
Travels With Charlie (Wine & Nut Records)The concept behind Travels With Charlie, putting down musical roots in 10 towns over 10 months, finds local namesake Faye cultivating a little roots patch in each. She tended it until it was strong, took what was hers, then moved on to the next fertile ground. With previous disc Wilson St. titled for and inspired by her heartfelt fight to preserve a block of affordable housing, Faye's no stranger to conceptual recordings, and here she documents harvest in a travelogue of the heart from Nashville, Tenn., to Asheville, N.C. "Girl Who Cried Love" comes imbued with Louisiana's Lil' Band o' Gold, "Undertow" was written with Ian Moore outside Seattle, and "Bitterness" is from the streets of Burlington, Vt. Travels With Charlie maps Faye's personal growth, too, a well-thought-out method that sows seeds of content and wonder with her troubadour dreams.