After channeling some of the greatest American songwriters on her first two albums, Kasey Chambers found inspiration much closer to home for her third.
She looked inside herself, to her tight-knit family and especially to her infant son to create her most mature and emotionally evocative album, the exceptional "Wayward Angel," which was released last year. "I found myself a bit more on this last album, which is kind of a natural growth," Chambers said.
Most important, motherhood "changed my whole perspective. I found a whole new side of myself — not always a positive side, but it was good to do."
Chambers said it was her now 3-year-old son Talon who inspired the title cut, a slow-burning song about a mother's devotion: "Hold my hand much tighter/I will walk you through these years/So close your weary, weathered eyes/You'll wake with the light of a mother's smile."
She said that song is her personal favorite, but it's not the audience favorite from the new album. "I have a soft spot for the song, because I wrote just after Talon was born.
When she began playing the new album live, she would ask for audience requests from it, and "people always wanted 'Pony,' when I really wanted to play 'Angel.' "
Chambers' first two albums garnered gushing praise from critics and contemporaries, especially her second, "Barricades and Brickwalls," which made her a multi-platinum artist in her home country of Australia. While it may seem odd for an Australian singer to be so comfortable with the Americana sound — she also sounds very country, with a voice akin to Dolly Parton or Loretta Lynn — she attributes that to a vagabond youth spent in the "deep Outback." There she was exposed to the "All-American country" sound of Hank Williams and Emmylou Harris, which her father, Bill, preferred.
At 12, she saw Lucinda Williams open for Roseanne Cash and was "blown away," she said. "I knew, right then, what I wanted to be." Eventually, that dream would be realized completely when Chambers would open for Williams, and even have her as a guest vocalist on the "Barricades" track of her album "On a Bad Day."
As a teenager, Chambers began writing songs and performing as part of The Dead Ringer Band, primarily a family band, until she stepped to the forefront to become a solo artist. To this day, however, Chambers' band is still a family affair, with her father on lead guitar and her brother Nash as producer and tour sound engineer.
For this tour, Chambers recruited another set of friends to open for her, The Greencards, an Australian band that now calls Nashville home. Prior to opening for Chambers, the band spent the summer opening for John Mellencamp and the Willie Nelson/Bob Dylan tours, as well as having a slot in Farm Aid.
"We're longtime friends, so it's like a reunion," Chambers said. "We're having a great time."
If you go
What: Kasey Chambers
When: Tuesday, 7 p.m.
Where: Red Butte Garden
How much: $25
Phone: 325-7328
E-mail: jloftin@desnews.com