{"id":19493,"date":"2020-09-12T05:30:58","date_gmt":"2020-09-12T09:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=19493"},"modified":"2020-09-12T10:19:18","modified_gmt":"2020-09-12T14:19:18","slug":"album-review-bonnie-whitmore-last-will-testament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/09\/12\/album-review-bonnie-whitmore-last-will-testament\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Bonnie Whitmore \u2013 Last Will &#038; Testament"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-19494\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/bonnie_whitmore.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/bonnie_whitmore.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/bonnie_whitmore-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/bonnie_whitmore-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>Bonnie Whitmore earned her stripes as a bassist for a number of acclaimed Americana artists including Hayes Carll and Eliza Gilkyson. But if you know me and my writing to any degree, you\u2019ll know that in itself doesn\u2019t pique my interest to any significant degree.<\/p>\n<p>What does, however, is <i>Last Will &amp; Testament<\/i>, Whitmore\u2019s fourth album. Though it\u2019s nominally in the Americana genre, I detect a much more expansive vision. The stomping beat and sweeping orchestration on the title track displays skill in songwriting, performance and arrangement. The strings are reminiscent of Led Zeppelin\u2019s \u201cKashmir\u201d (of all things), and the sonorous twang of the lead guitar combines with the other sonic elements to create a thing of beauty and power.<\/p>\n<p>That opening track doesn\u2019t really signal what\u2019s to come, however. <em>Last Will &amp; Testament<\/em> has dreamy, late-night weepers like \u201cNone of My Business,\u201d shimmering Bacharach-flavored singer-songwriter pop like \u201cRight\/Wrong\u201d and the twangy classic country strains of \u201cFine.\u201d And Whitmore rocks out hard on the smoky, sinister \u201cAsked for It.\u201d Elsewhere, \u201cTime to Shoot\u201d is an expressive, yearning tune with keening fiddle worked into the mix.<\/p>\n<p>The wonderfully understated and subtle \u201cLove Worth Remembering\u201d has a laid-back Southern blues-rock ballad feel. \u201cImaginary&#8221; is an off-kilter number that\u2019s a kind of Americana corollary to Suzanne Vega\u2019s intriguingly experimental <i>99.9F\u00b0<\/i>. \u201cFlashes &amp; Cables\u201d is a contemplative number that unfolds halfway through to become something far more interesting and soul-stirring. And Whitmore throws listeners a curve ball with the album\u2019s closer, an old school vocal jazz-meets-country number called \u201cGeorge\u2019s Lullaby.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>An exercise in eclecticism that nonetheless works well as a listening experience, <i>Last Will &amp; Testament<\/i> is recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bonnie Whitmore earned her stripes as a bassist for a number of acclaimed Americana artists including Hayes Carll and Eliza Gilkyson. But if you know me and my writing to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19494,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,49,65],"tags":[4299],"class_list":["post-19493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-americana","category-new-release","category-review","tag-bonnie-whitmore","cat-6-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19493"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19653,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19493\/revisions\/19653"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}