The Lonely, the Lonesome and the Gone
| Lee Ann Womack
The Lonely, the Lonesome and the Gone
The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone is the ninth studio album by the American country music singer-songwriter Lee Ann Womack. It was released on October 27, 2017, by ATO Records It was available to stream a week before on NPR.org as part of its First Listen series.-Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
Show All-
Saving Country Music
The Lonely, The Lonesome, & the Gone starts off a little strange stylistically, almost like it’s trying to stretch Lee Ann into the realm of this Muscle Shoals revival that east Nashville and Americana has been obsessed over for the last few years.
-
Sounds Like Nashville
There’s definitely a little bit of everything on this album within the country element.
-
NPR
Though The Lonely, The Lonesome & The Gone is bookended by stirring vocal performances, it's an album that shows Womack to be one of American roots music's foremost auteurs, one with a compelling voice for storytelling and the vision to use it to powerful effect.
-
The Wall Street Journal
Two decades after the release of her self-titled debut album, the country star’s strength as a singer and storyteller is still on full display.
-
Rolling Stone
Womack had a hand in writing half of the album’s tracks, which range from the steel guitar-laced “Talking Behind Your Back” to the soulful swank of “He Called Me Baby,” which both further cement Womack as one of the genre’s most formative vocalists. It’s Nashville’s younger generation who often gets to hold the candle for reinventing and rebirthing country’s classic sounds, but The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone is one the best examples this year of how old can be new again.
-
Metacritic
The ninth full-length studio release for the country singer-songwriter was produced by her husband, Frank Liddell. Womack is in terrific voice throughout, the songs--including her co-writes--are top notch and with Lidell’s sympathetic backing and production, it’s hard to imagine how anything could be improved. It’s a late-breaking short list nominee for 2017’s album of the year.
-
Belles and Gals
This album not only has soul in abundance but also draws on her varied musical influences with trad country, gospel and blues all coming through too. Along with some wonderful arrangements and playing Lee Ann’s vocals again prove why she is considered one of the best interpreters of a song in country music.
-
Pop Matters
Womack recorded The Lonely, The Lonesome & The Gone in Houston, near the small town where she grew up and reached back to move forward musically. The album's title suggests soppiness lies ahead, but Womack expresses a wide range of emotions on this release. Like Texas, the collection is expansive and has many different characteristics. Womack co-wrote half of the 14 tracks, and when she does cover Cline, Womack chose a sultry selection (“He Called Me Baby") over a sad one.
-
Roughstock
The Lonely, The Lonesome & The Gone, a 14 song affair that took Lee Ann Womack back to her native Texas for recording at Sugar Hill Studios in Houston. These songs, released via her new deal with ATO Records, are largely newly-written material from a core group of collaborators, a departure from The Way That I’m Livin’s collection sourced from (fantastic) outside writers. Of the 14 songs on The Lonely, The Lonesome & The Gone, 10 are new songs and the others are familiar iconic songs. It’s a mix that works and works well.
-
Highway Queens
The Lonely, The Lonesome & the Gone is outstanding with quality songs and vocal performances throughout.
-
Journal Star
None of the 14 songs on “The Lonely, The Lonesome & The Gone” are likely to turn up on country radio or turn into hits. But that’s not where real country is generally found these days. And that’s just what Womack brings from start to finish on an album that’s one of the best — and only — true country records of 2017.
-
New York Times
Ms. Womack has called the new album “country blues,” but that’s as much a tonal description as a stylistic one. She spends 14 tracks embodying the most delicate and desperate extremes of melancholy, inscribing countrypolitan and torchy pop arrangements with sighing silences, and launching into anguished, note-bending runs during the roiling, down-home numbers. The liberal use of reverb, particularly on the steel guitar and her voice, has a haunting effect.
-
Newbury Comics
The album mixes the country, soul, gospel and blues of her native East Texas, into an audacious, sharp-edged work of art. Produced by Womack’s husband and fellow Texan Frank Liddell. ‘The Lonely, The Lonesome & The Gone’ features fourteen new songs, recorded with Womack’s core band of top shelf musicians including bassist Glenn Worf, songwriters and guitarists Wright, Payne and Ethan Ballinger, and drummer Jerry Roe. The album was mostly recorded at the legendary SugarHillStudios in Houston, TX.
-
AXS
The Lonely, The Lonesome, and the Gone is a good second foray into Americana for Lee Ann Womack. More experimental than her previous album, with a broader range of styles, it's a more mature Womack, and one who is ready to ride whichever muse she can saddle in Americana's big tent of influences.
-
Dallas Observer
With the music Womack grew up making informing the music she makes now, she found her inspiration right where it always was — at home.
-
Shorefire
An album that shows Womack to be one of American roots music's foremost auteurs.
-
AP News
Produced again by her husband, Frank Liddell, the set relies more on Womack’s songwriting than before. She co-wrote six of the 14 tunes, including down-on-your-luck opener “All the Trouble” and the desolate “Hollywood,” portraying a relationship (barely) going through the motions.
-
Wide Open Country
On her ninth studio album, Womack returns to her pen, co-writing six of the album's 14 tracks. She also shares some of the most confident vocals in her career, while still finding space for that delicate quiver she first introduced to the world 20 years ago.
-
My Kind Of Country
Lee Ann Womack’s latest album is something of a departure, leaning in a bluesier direction than previously. This arose largely out of the lyrical theme of the album, adrressing hard times and lost love.
-
Google Play
The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone is the ninth studio album by the American country music singer-songwriter Lee Ann Womack. The album was nominated for Best Americana Album and Best American Roots Song for "All the Trouble" at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards.
-
Billboard
One of the highlights on the album is the breathtaking title cut, where the singer yearns for a time where there were more songs about heartbreak and real life. Singing about such emotions is something that connects her to the golden era of country music.
-
Exclaim
Lee Ann Womack's The Lonely, The Lonesome & The Gone is a personal album of moody and brooding lyrics with an American roots, country, soul, gospel and blues ambience.
-
Michelle Jones
On an album full of good songs it is the ones about heartbreak that really stand out.
-
Uproxx
She’s still mapping this territory on The Lonely, The Lonesome & The Gone, with help from longtime collaborators like the writers Dale Dodson and Waylon Payne and Womack’s husband, Frank Lidell. If you’ve listened to any country, odds are you’ve encountered the work of Lidell, a versatile producer with sharp ears who has helped craft every Miranda Lambert album in addition to stand-out records for The Pistol Annies, David Nail and Kellie Pickler. Every sound on The Lonely, The Lonesome & The Gone is in 1080p, pristine even when rugged. The stunning, minute-long outro to “Hollywood” best encapsulates Lidell’s gifts behinds the boards: Wordless backing vocals and a deluge of percussion sluice through a deep pool of guitars, nothing wants for space, and the song comes to a close in a trance-like state of delight.
-
CMT
Billed as Womack’s most personal collection to date, The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone features 14 songs mostly co-written by Womack. And the material touches on country, southern soul, gospel and blues indigenous to her native East Texas.
-
Local Spins
If Americana can be described as elegant, Womack’s straightforward set was certainly that: sumptuous, vintage country without extraneous frills or pop baubles.
-
Telegram
“The Lonely, The Lonesome & The Gone,” as good an album as she’s ever done. Produced again by her husband, Frank Liddell, the set relies more on Womack’s songwriting than before. She co-wrote six of the 14 tunes, including down-on-your-luck opener “All the Trouble” and the desolate “Hollywood,” portraying a relationship (barely) going through the motions.
-
Defend The Album
Lee Ann Womack’s The Lonely, The Lonesome & The Gone is really good country. Not country rock, rap, or pop; there are no daisy dukes, hot-100 hooks, or Nelly features. Country. It’s steel slides, struggle, and faith.
-
American Music Show
Lee Ann Womack’s ninth release continues her steady progression from Noughties mainstream Country star to Country Americana artist. She has such presence and musical pedigree that any release is a real event. Fans whether old and new will not be disappointed.
-
Mighty Ape
The album mixes the country, soul, gospel and blues of her native East Texas. Produced by Womack's husband and fellow Texan Frank Liddell.
-
Texas Music Photographers
THE LONELY, THE LONESOME AND THE GONE (ATO Records) — a breathtaking hybrid of country, soul, gospel and blues — comes from Womack’s core.
-
People
The Lonely, the Lonesome, and the Gone – one of the year’s most fearless and soulful albums to come out of Nashville this side of Chris Stapleton.
-
Washington Times
Produced again by her husband, Frank Liddell, the set relies more on Womack’s songwriting than before. She co-wrote six of the 14 tunes, including down-on-your-luck opener “All the Trouble” and the desolate “Hollywood,” portraying a relationship (barely) going through the motions.
-
Nashville Scene
The Lonely, the Lonesome and the Gone, voted the third-best album of 2017 in the Scene’s Country Music Critics’ Poll. She’s also been voted the year’s Best Female Vocalist. She cut her album at Houston’s fabled SugarHill Recording Studios, where everyone from George Jones and Willie Nelson to Lightnin’ Hopkins and Beyoncé have made milestone recordings. In doing so, Womack has recaptured a time when country music contained distinctive regional sounds — and was richer for it.
-
BGS
For her eighth — and maybe her best — album, The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone, Womack trekked down to Houston, Texas, and set up camp at the historic SugarHill Studio, which has hosted famed sessions by some of her musical heroes: Lightnin’ Hopkins, the Sir Douglas Quintet, George Jones, and many others.
-
Inquirer
The Lonely, the Lonesome & the Gone continues to dig into that fertile ground, applying her formidable voice to a set of unvarnished country songs produced by her husband, Frank Liddell. The 14-song blue mood piece includes seven she cowrote, covers of George Jones and Harlan Howard, two well-chosen songs by rising country tunesmith Brent Cobb, and the near miraculous feat of making the storied murder ballad "Long Black Veil" sound fresh. And maybe best of all — along with the black-and-white cover shot of Womack puffing out cigarette smoke — is Adam Wright and Jay Knowles' title track, which deromanticizes honky-tonk tropes about lonesome trains and walking the floor with a lyric about how heartache songs never get old.
-
Hallels
'The Lonely, The Lonesome & The Gone,' an album that mixes the country, soul, gospel and blues of her native East Texas, into an audacious, sharp-edged work of art.
-
Nashville Country Club
‘The Lonely, The Lonesome & The Gone’ “an album that shows Womack to be one of American roots music’s foremost auteurs, one with a compelling voice for storytelling and the vision to use it to powerful effect,” while LA Times says the album is “one of the most personal albums of her impressive career.”
-
Country Universe
Lee Ann Womack has no interest in sticking to a formula, even if it’s a winning one. So her follow up to the critically acclaimed The Way I’m Livin’ takes a sharp left turn from that stripped down set, incorporating elements of jazz and blue-eyed soul. “Mama Lost Her Smile” and the title track are two of the finest compositions she’s ever graced with her voice.
Rate This Album and Leave Your Comments