In her first release of new material in 17 years, Tucker brings the energy born of having faced hard times, along with the joy of one who has made it through to a better place. Like Johnny Cash, who revitalized his career by working with producer Rick Rubin, Tucker credits much of this great album to co-producers Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings. Even with all that high powered help though the sound is all Tucker. Given the authenticity of her delivery, I falsely assumed that the songs must have been self penned which speaks to both the quality of her presentation and to the song craft of Carlile and Tim & Phil Hanseroth. If anything her smokey vocals have only improved with time.

RIYL: Brandi Carlile, Dolly Parton

**1 Mustang Ridge – lovely toe tapper with great guitar & banjo (med, 3:30)
**2 The Wheels Of Laredo – down tempo, soft instrumentation really lets her great voice shine (3:40, slow)
**3 I Don’t Owe You Anything – sassy tale of wife chucking out her good for nothing husband (fast, 2:30)
**4 The Day My Heart Goes Still – bittersweet tribute to her father with just the right amount of orchestration to set the mood (med, 3:10)
**5 High Ridin’ Heroes – soulful ballad with mostly acoustic backing (slow, 3:20)
6 The House That Built Me – dramatic ballad of a woman returning to her childhood home (slow, 4:05)
**7 Hard Luck – full bore stomp celebrating life in spite of her hardships with great backing vocals and lots of twang (fast, 3:20)
8 Rich – nice bluegrass sound with steel guitar & standup bass (med, 2:30)
*9 Seminole Wind Calling – ode to her Texas hometown form one who has seen the world (med, 3:20)
*10 Bring My Flowers Now – beautiful, bittersweet tale of one looking back on a fully lived life with Carlile doing great piano accompaniment (slow, 4:15)