Alysha Brooke – July/August 2006
Who: Alysha Brooke
What: country bumpkin
Where: Rockwood, ON
To Contact: Cedar Trail Music, P.O. Box 1139, TDC Postal Station, 77 King St. W., Toronto, ON M5K 1P2 www.cedartrailmusic.com, www.alyshabrooke.com.
I Talk Country is the second release from this 19-year-old singer. Her first, the six-song Nuthin’ But A Chevy, was self-produced and self-financed, but this is the first for indie label Cedar Trail Music, whose owner, Mike Belobradic, wrote almost all the songs and co-produced them with Sally Bridgman at Escarpment Sound Studios in Acton, ON. The album’s lead/title-track kicks off with fiddle, demonstrating off the bat the kind of country Brooke prefers – traditional, fun and hayseed. The lyric tells of a young girl who denounces her prim and proper upbringing for the redneck dialect. “I used to speak correctly when I was still in school … Now I talk country,” she sings. “Country Bumpkin Blues” is another playful pride-filled story about her “old-fashioned double dose of country charm.” This determined young woman, who plays guitar and co-wrote several songs on the album, also wrote one by herself, “Cheated,” which brings a bit of blues and rock ‘n’ roll into her steadfast country talkin’. Brooke performs everywhere from clubs to rodeos, fairs to racetracks, and has sung the Canadian and American National anthems at the Dodge Rodeo Tour and the Breeders Cup. It will be interesting to see if she chooses to go the Shania/Faith direction as she gets older.
