Music
Juni Fisher: Western songbird
Web exclusive
Who is Juni Fisher? She's the 2008 Western Heritage Wrangler Award Winner, 2008 WMA Songwriter of the Year, 2007 WMA Song of the Year Songwriter, 2006 WMA Female Vocalist of the Year, 2005 AWA Western Female Performer of the Year, 2005 WMA Crescendo Award Winner — and one heck of a Western balladeer. We asked Fisher for a playlist that reveals the boot-wearin' troubadour behind the awards. Here are her picks. (Click the module below to download these songs or listen to clips.)
• Jump to CD review and video
From Tumbleweed Letters
I Will Miss Ireland
Chinaman Jack
The Same River
Red Velvet Slippers
From Sideshow Romance
Raglan Road
He'd Be Home By Now
From Cowgirlography
I Hope She'll Love Me
Goodnight Good Pony
From Gone For Colorado
Gone For Colorado
Goin' Somewhere
Long Way From Missoura
• Do you have iTunes downloaded on your computer? Click here to listen to our playlist of Juni songs.
CD review
Enlarge Gone for Colorado
Juni Fisher
Red Geetar Records
www.junifisher.com
You won't find a more honest-to-goodness cowgirl than Juni Fisher, and when she picks up her guitar and sings, you couldn't hear a more authentic Western troubadour.
One listen to her new release, Gone for Colorado, and you'll understand why her ballads have become shoo-ins for Western-music awards. Her songs exemplify the roots of Western, country, and Americana music, and her pleasing amalgam of the three genres is well-represented on this new record.
This is a concept album, as signaled by the subtitle — to live a cowboy's life. The cowboy in question, it turns out, is Fisher's great-grandfather John E. Overstreet, and the story line of the album revolves around his life in Sedalia, Colorado.
It's a family story, and the lyrics swell with the power of the personal. From the high lonesome sadness of "Emma" to the heartfelt longing of "Long Way from Missoura," it's the slow-tempo tragic songs that grab the soul.
But it's not all wrenching: The spry energy of "Wild New Mexico Cowgirl" feels like a tequila shot first thing in the morning — it's sure to get your blood flowing.
Like all her music, these are songs that show what true country music can achieve.
Gone for Colorado is yet more musical evidence why Juni Fisher is the premier cowgirl storyteller of our time.
— Michael Lohr
• Read the whole story on Juni Fisher in C&I's July 2009 issue.
