Jessie jumps from TV to country star
AS An Irish actress playing a Scotswoman in thrall to the songs of nashville, Jessie Buckley would appear to have her work cut out in the new film Wild Rose.
But the star of stage and screen, and runner-up in the BBC talent show I’d Do Anything in 2008, steps up to the challenge in style, with a performance that goes beyond mere role-playing.
This album is the soundtrack to Tom Harper’s picture about a young single mother striving to break out of Glasgow and make it as a rhinestone cowgirl. But it doubles as a debut LP from Buckley, 29, who plays Rose-Lynn Harlan in the movie.
out next week to coincide with the film’s release, it features a heartwarming set of songs that will enhance Buckley’s growing reputation — and maybe even raise eyebrows in Tennessee’s Music City,
Backed by top-class session players from Glasgow and nashville, the star from County Kerry performs with real conviction on a mixture of covers and originals: country-rockers are belted out; ballads sung with plaintive charm.
The artistic ties to Scotland are evident from the off. Wild Rose opens with a rousing cover of Glasgow band Primal Scream’s Country Girl, rendered with rasping power as it picks up pace from a chugging, acoustic intro.
From there, Buckley heads for country’s rawest heartlands, covering emmylou Harris’s emotional ballad Boulder To Birmingham — one of three emmylou numbers here — and John Prine’s Angel From Montgomery. Prine recorded the original, a touching folk song about a middle-aged woman who feels much older than her years, for his 1971 debut album, but Jessie’s take is more clearly aligned with Bonnie Raitt’s subsequent blues version.
Some tracks have a contemporary twist. outlaw State of Mind was written by Chris Stapleton, the singer who appeared with Justin Timberlake at the BRITs last year, and has all the trimmings of modern country-rock. Covered In Regret looks to the twangy pop that was once the preserve of Taylor Swift.
Jessie’s originals, composed with scriptwriter nicole Taylor, are hit and miss. Robbing The Bank of Life is a generic country- rocker, but Alright To Be All Wrong superbly frames the sense of conflict between her character’s dreams of stardom and the pull of family ties.
Where Buckley heads now is anyone’s guess. She has already starred in TV dramas The Woman In White, War And Peace and Taboo and her film career is taking wing. But she’s found her voice as a singer, too.