Throwback Thursday: Edens Edge, self-titled debut album

Welcome to Throwback Thursday, a weekly series showcasing an album, single, music video or performance of a bygone era and its personal and/or cultural significance.

From the deep muddy waters and brambly countryside of Arkansas, a trio of players, who met through mutual friends, came together to make some sweet and wonderful music. Singer-songwriter Hannah Blaylock, guitarist and dobro player Dean Berner and mandolin, guitar and banjo aficionado Cherrill Green bonded over shared ambitions of twinkling Nashville lights, fresh-scented record contracts and massive worldwide tours. “The other day, I actually looked at Cherrill and was like, ’Do you remember when we would drive around in Russellville, Ark.?” Blaylock once reminisced. “We’d say, ’Man, it’s going to be so cool someday to move to Nashville and do what we love.’ We’d just sit there and dream about it to each other.”

That kind of grit and spirit served her and her bandmates quite well. Under the marquee-ready name Edens Edge, they won a CMT-sponsored contest in 2006, and after a bit of encouragement from prominent songwriter Kye Fleming (Barbara Mandrell, Ronnie Milsap, The Judds), they made the big move to Music City one year later. But their trek to glory was only just beginning. Cut to 2009 when Fleming asked the band to perform a medley of her classic songwriting treasures at Fleming’s induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. As the story goes, Scott Borchetta, CEO of Big Machine Records, was in attendance and became so enthralled by their talents, he set up a meeting the very next day. The moment they walked in, he offered them a record deal.

Blaylock, Berner and Green officially signed on the dotted line the next spring, and the stars really did seem to be aligning for a rags-to-riches story. Their debut single “Amen,” which showcases not only Blaylock’s vocal attack but the trio’s tightly-bound musicianship, followed in early 2011 and became a bonafide Top 20 hit. The stage was set for their debut long-player, a self-titled project which acts like a see-saw between Green’s bluegrass childhood, Berner’s handiness at the strings and Blaylock’s locomotive-propelled vocal puffs. Edens Edge arrived with a cannonball splash in the summer of 2012.

Six years later, and the album still holds up, possessing a sturdy base of country tradition sanded down with that hearty Music Row delight. “Swingin’ Door,” framed around a Texas honky-tonk, and “Skinny Dippin’,” a galloping sneak-away into the brush, are sun-bleached and tangy. The band together ramble hard and fast, scurrying between the crackle of banjo and the guitar’s kitten-sized purr. “Too Good to Be True,” which was the record’s second and final radio single, combines the zip of The Judds with the unquenchable zest of Terri Clark, with some added Dixie Chicks body-slamming for good measure.

Smack-dab right in the center is “Last Supper,” among Blaylock’s finest vocal performances. She whirls and tilts like a tilt-a-whirl gone haywire, her soprano sizzling and breaking at the ends. “Look at the couple in the corner booth / Looks a lot like me and you / She’s looking out at the window / He’s staring down at his shoes,” she sings, rearranging the words into various states of wordplay. “She gets another glass of Cabernet / She’s searching hard for something to say / He’s got that little-too-late look on his already-gone face…”

Her voice lingers as a ghost of a memory, drowning the lyrics in a kind of anguish that you know is coming (you can feel it in your fingertips), but you’re powerless to stop it. She then frames the famous Last Supper story from the Bible as her and her lover’s final moments before they part. “Is it time for a coming to Jesus / Baby tell me that won’t be us, us / Is that all we are to each other? / Could it be our last supper?” There is a profound yearning breaking out of her body, looming overhead, criss-crossing their troubled gazes, that Blaylock taps into with a beyond-her-years kind of acumen. It hangs on her every word with dexterity but ultimately drags her to the ground.

Where “Feels So Real,” another weighty, trembling performance, delivers an emotional and bloody left-hook, “Who Am I Drinking Tonight” twists with cheeky plumpness, ala John Prine or Sunny Sweeney. Blaylock then spouts off a parade of booze-y beverages with a wink and a smile: “Are you a Kenny tequila, Buffet margarita / Or an Alan Jackson hurricane? / Are you a good time, flask of moonshine / Going George Strait to my brain? / A girl can tell a lot about a boy in one shot / I gotta know you’ve got a Bocephus side / So, what’s in the cup, order it up / Who am I drinking tonight?”

“Liar” spooks up traditions of the past with alarming stillness (“I helped you find her diamond ring / You made me try it on and everything,” sings Blaylock, displaying great restraint and calm); and “Cherry Pie,” while not particularly memorable against the album’s bigger hitters, is still sweet and gentle. So, when “Christ Alone,” written by Steve Smith, comes along, you think, “I couldn’t possibly have anything in my heart left to give!” And you’d be wrong. From the a cappella approach to the compact harmony work to Blaylock’s angelic subtly, it’s a moment that carries tremendous insight into this sometimes tiring human existence. It’s pretty stunning, really.

Edens Edge, produced by Dann Huff (Taylor Swift, Midland, Faith Hill) and Mark Bright (Carrie Underwood, Reba, Scotty McCreery), is timeless. It combs the most satisfying components of mainstream and traditional country music, tying it up with a pretty silvery, easily-digestible bow on top of a perfectly-wrapped package of three underdogs living their dreams. There’s very little (if anything) not to enjoy all this time later.

Blaylock left the band less than a year later, and Green and Berner were dropped from Big Machine. And that’s all there is to say about that.

Related note: Blaylock’s solo project, Bandit Queen, is wonderfully cool. Go buy it.

Listen below:

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