About six years ago, Paul and Amy Jo loaned us an album by Iris Dement, a country singer of sorts. I say “of sorts” because Dement’s music is difficult to classify: it’s certainly folk or country or bluegrass or spiritual, yet it’s none of these. And all of them. Also, Dement’s singing voice has a distinctive nasal twang that can be off-putting at first. Kris and I didn’t know what to think when we first heard her. With time, Dement’s voice grew on us; it’s not polished or produced, but it’s authentic. (I’m reminded of hearing my grandmother and my cousins sing when I was a child.)
We saw Iris Dement in concert last night. The crowd was largely middle-aged: grey hair and bald heads abounded. Joel and Aimee might have been the youngest couple present. Though the crowd was old, it was plenty enthusiastic.
The show was great.
Dement’s voice is just as quirky and powerful in person as it is on record; her recorded sound can be described aptly as unproduced. Dement looks girlish, and she dressed in a plain dress. She took the stage alone, and alternated between a piano and an acoustic guitar, playing songs and chatting with the audience.
Dement writes many of her own songs, and her music and lyrics are deeply rooted in the country tradition, and in the hymns and spirituals her family sang when she was a child. She’s been influenced by the Carter family, by The Weavers, by Jimmie Rodgers. Her own music rests comfortably beside these country legends.
Many of Dement’s songs are bittersweet paeans to small towns, to family, to childhood. Hers is not music you’d want to listen to while feeling down; to do so would only exacerbate your blues. Not all of her songs are downers, though.
This song is an ode to her mother:
Mama’s Opry
by Iris Dement
She grew up plain and simple in a farming town.
Her daddy played the fiddle and
used to do the calling when they had hoedowns.
She says the neighbors would come and
they’d move all my grandma’s furniture ’round.
And there’d be twenty or more there
on the old wooden floor dancin’ to a country sound.
The Carters and Jimmie Rodgers played
her favourite songs.
And on Saturday nights there was a radio show and
she would sing along.
And I’ll never forget her face when she revealed to me,
That she’d dreamed about singing at the Grand Ole Opry.
Her eyes, oh, how they sparkled when
she sang those songs.
While she was hanging the clothes on the line,
I was a kid just a hummin’ along.
Well, I’d be playing in the grass, to her,
what might’ve seemed, obliviously,
But there ain’t no doubt about it:
she sure made her mark on me.
An’ she played old gospel records on the phonograph.
She turned them up loud and we’d sing along,
but those days have passed.
Just now that I am older it occurs to me,
That I was singing in the grandest opry.
And we sang Sweet Rose of Sharon, Abide With Me,
‘Til I ride The Gospel Ship to Heaven’s Jubilee.
And In That Great Triumphant Morning
my soul will be free,
And My Burdens Will Be Lifted when
my Saviour’s face I see.
So I Don’t Want to Get Adjusted to this world below,
But I know He’ll Pilot Me ’til it comes time to go.
Oh, nothing on this earth is half as dear to me,
As the sound of my Mama’s Opry
And we sang Sweet Rose of Sharon, Abide With Me,
‘Til I ride The Gospel Ship to Heaven’s Jubilee.
And In That Great Triumphant Morning
my soul will be free,
And My Burdens Will Be Lifted when
my Saviour’s face I see.
So I Don’t Want to Get Adjusted to This World below,
But I know He’ll Pilot Me ’til it comes time to go.
Oh, nothing on this earth is half as dear to me,
As the sound of my Mama’s Opry
“Mama’s Opry” is typical of Dement’s early songs. Her first two albums are touched with sweet nostalgia and gentle tempos. Her third album disappointed some people. It’s more rock-and-roll. It is less about personal introspection than her previous efforts. It embraces a traditional aggressive folk activism as typified by this song:
Wasteland of the Free
by Iris Dement
We got preachers dealin’ in politics and diamond mines
And their speech is growing increasingly unkind
They say they are Christ’s disciples
But they don’t look like Jesus to me
And it feels like I’m livin’ in the wasteland of the free
We got politicians runnin’ races on corporate cash
Now don’t tell me they don’t turn around and
kiss them people’s ass
Now you may call me old-fashioned
But that don’t fit my picture of a true democracy
And it feels like I’m livin’ in the wasteland of the free
We got CEO’s makin’ 200 times the worker’s pay
But they’ll fight like hell against raisin’
the minimum wage
And if you don’t like it Mister
They’ll ship your job to some third world country
‘cross the sea
And it feels like I’m livin’ in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free
Where the poor have now become the enemy
Let’s blame our troubles on the weak ones
Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy
Living in the wasteland of the free
We got little kids with guns fightin’ inner city wars
So, what do we do, we put these little kids
behind prison doors
And we call ourselves the advanced civilization
But that sounds like crap to me
And it feels like I’m livin’ in the wasteland of the free
We got high school kids runnin’ ’round in
Calvin Klein and Guess
Who cannot pass a 6th grade reading test
But if you ask them, they can tell you
The name of every crotch on MTV
And it feels like I’m livin’ in the wasteland of the free
We kill for oil then we throw a party when we win
Some guy refuses to fight and we call that the sin
But he’s standin’ up for what he believes in
And that seems pretty damned American to me
And it feels like I’m livin’ in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free
Where the poor have now become the enemy
Let’s blame our troubles on the weak ones
Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy
Living in the wasteland of the free
While we sit gloating in our greatness
Justice is sinking to the bottom of the sea
And it feels like I’m livin’ in the wasteland of the free
Yes, Dement can be bitter. Very bitter, as evidenced by her cover of “God May Forgive You” (right-click here to download an mp3 of the song — Mr. Record Company Executive, please don’t sue me: I’m trying to sell your music here):
God May Forgive You
by Harlan Howard and Bobby Braddock
You say that you’re born again,
Cleansed of your former sins
You want me to say “I forgive and forget”
But you’ve done too much to me
Don’t you be touching me,
Go back and touch all those women you’ve made
Ccause God may forgive you, but I won’t
Yes, Jesus loves you, but I don’t
They don’t have to live with you and neither do I
You say that you’re born again, well so am I
God may forgive you, but I won’t
And I won’t even try
Well, the kids had to cry for you
I had to try to do
Things that the Dad should do
Since you’ve been gone
Well, you really let us down
You may be Heaven ‘bound
But you’ve left one hell of a mess here at home
‘Cause God may forgive you, but I won’t
Yes, Jesus loves you, but I don’t
They don’t have to live with you and neither do I
You say that you’re born again, well so am I
God may forgive you, but I won’t
And I won’t even try
I won’t even try
Though Iris is a critical darling, she’s never enjoyed much mainstream success. Her voice is unique, and not well-suited to Big Media country radio. Many people were exposed to her (though they might not realize it) when her song “Our Town” was played at the end of the final episode of Northern Exposure.
Dement, the youngest of fourteen children, was born on 05 January 1961 in Paragould, Arkansas, just west of Missouri. Hard times for farmers forced her family to move to California when she was three-years-old. Even an hour from Los Angeles, her life was a rural one: her parents’ rural ways were deeply ingrained, and the family lived in a community filled with other transplants from Arkansas and Oklahoma. Music was an integral part to the Dement family.
Her family was also deeply religious — and this has influenced her music — but Iris left the organized religion when she was sixteen. She dropped out of school when she was seventeen. Iris moved around, performing odd jobs, and eventually obtained her GED. While taking a creative writing course, she decided that she could write songs. And she did.
She released her first album, “Infamous Angel”, on an independent label in 1992. A Warner Brothers executive heard the album and signed her. “Infamous Angel” was given a wider release, and Iris followed it with “My Life” in 1994, and “The Way I Should” in 1996. It has been seven years since Dement released a new album! Unfortunately, at last night’s concert, she revealed that she has no plans to release one any time soon.
For more information about Iris Dement, check out these pages:
What are you waiting for? Support a fantastic artist. Purchase Infamous Angel, My Life, or The Way I Should from Amazon! If you’re a fan of Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Nanci Griffith, Dar Williams (who has a new album due out soon), or the Indigo Girls, then you owe it to yourself to check out Iris Dement.
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