Music Review: Sierra Ferrell, Long Time Coming
Sierra Ferrell’s dazzling debut album on the Rounder label takes the listener on a journey around the world while delving into the depths of heartache and a search for home—wherever, whatever, and whomever that may be.
Sierra Ferrell, Long Time Coming album artwork. Photo credit: RGB
Recently, Carol introduced me to West Virginia native singer-songwriter Sierra Ferrell, and on one pass through her first album, Pretty Magic Spell, I was hooked. So, when it was announced that Ferrell planned to release her debut album on the Rounder label August 20, I jumped at the chance to write my first Adventures in Americana music review!
Ferrell’s new album, Long Time Coming, takes the listener on a trip around the world. She expertly weaves together the eclectic sounds from the old-timey country roads of West Virginia (including the new single “The Bells of Every Chapel,” the sweet, slow-building stunner “West Virginia Waltz,” the jubilantly defiant “Silver Dollar,” and sublime “In Dreams”) to New Orleans jazz, Spanish flamenco, Caribbean calypso, and Argentinian tango (including two of my favorite tracks—“Far Away Across the Sea” and “Why'd Ya Do It”) without losing her footing on the foundation of Americana the album is built.
Because her musical tastes run as far and wide as my own, I was game to tag along wherever Ferrell’s musical and lyrical adventure took me.
The first track of the album, “The Sea,” (another of my favorites) sets the tone for this debut. A multi-instrumentalist, Ferrell presents her varied talents on this track with a ghostly saw, eerie toy piano, and richly layered vocals that call to mind the trembling yet strong voice of Edith Piaf. Combined with acoustic and steel-guitars, Ferrell conjures the fatigue of a string of doomed romances that threaten to “put out my flames,” set against the epic scales of Greek mythology. This song easily evokes the sirens of Homer’s Odyssey, specifically in likeness to Emmylou Harris’ siren vocals in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the Cohen Brothers’ semi-modern take on Odyssey.
While Ferrell’s vocals are definitely reminiscent of Emmylou Harris—and even the rollicking mischievousness of Loretta Lynn—Ferrell is her own force of nature, unafraid to explore sharper edges that make hairpin turns and take a tumble with some impressive vocal trilling—all to keep the listener off balance as if walking a tightrope. Lyrically, in “The Sea,” Ferrell starts us off upon the tumultuous waves of (crushingly relatable) relationships and heartbreak that permeate the entire album:
So Poseidon give me life
Let me breathe like a Pisces with blue eyes
Or a Cancer who's crawlin' by
So I'm askin' you this time
Please don't you let my love run dry
I'm so tired of you leavin' me with a sigh.
Sierra Ferrell, single release artwork. Photo credit: RGB.
Released along with “Why'd Ya Do It” as a single back in October 2020, “Jeremiah” is another love-gone-sour song, though this time, it’s a softly scolding ballad in support of a friend (or is it a pseudonym?) named Sue whose man did her wrong:
Oh Jeremiah tell me what have you done
You took all the love she gave
You took it all and away you run
You can’t keep all your love bottled inside
So you give it away to women
Almost a different woman every single night
You think that you can hide from the morning light
You forgot about sweet Sue
And the promises you said you’d do
She’s gonna put you back up on the shelf
She does better by herself
The video for “Jeremiah” has Ferrell sitting on a porch in a sparkling dress and a wide-brimmed hat, strumming a guitar and crooning effortlessly as unseen traffic whips past her. It’s as if she’s reminding him where his home is; but maybe Sue would be much better off if he just drove on by.
Sierra Ferrell. Photo credit: Alysse Gafkjen.
Embedded within all of the heartbreak, there’s a strong sense of a personified longing for the place she’s from, places she’s been, and places she has yet to ramble along to. Ferrell’s a self-proclaimed vagabond like me, so it’s possible that my mind gravitates to that theme because I acutely identify with stories of longing for a home—familiar people or places with all the passions, imperfections, hope and potential they hold—despite a mysterious calling to keep moving on to the next place, the next adventure. For me, there’s a palpable sense of melancholy that seeps through the track “I’m Made Like That,” where she pines for a delinquent, destructive lover that is her hometown:
I'll fix all of your bridges
I have watched you burn to the ground
I can’t help it, I'm made like that.
Then, a moment later:
Well I need to get out of this place
I can't seem to forget your face
I keep thinking maybe in time
Well you could learn to be mine
I-I-I I'm made like that
I just wasn't made for these times.
I'm leavin' home
I'm leavin' home
I'm so sorry mama I gotta go
I'm leavin' home
I'm leavin' home
West Virginia, country roads
West Virginia, all I know
West Virginia, I'm leavin' you today.
This leaving, for good or bad, as many of us who have left home behind have experienced, lifts that weight off of us and brings us to places we would not otherwise have seen, introduces us to people we would never have met, and exposes us to experiences that broaden our perspective of what our place in the world means.
As I write this, it strikes me how similar this album is to Alynda Segarra’s (of Hurray for the Riff Raff) 2017 album, The Navigator. Not in sound per se, but in the exploration of musical styles from around the world, steeped in an Americana perspective, and the themes of love lost and searching for where they feel they belong. While the artists have very different backgrounds and sounds, each has lived as a nomad, hopping trains, busking in New Orleans, and refusing to be pigeon-holed. It is these American explorations of sound and story that the Americana umbrella covers—that it can and does hold it all. Neither the music nor ourselves need to be just one thing.
Ferrell now calls Nashville home, and while I’m still not so sure about where exactly home is myself, it’s begun to feel like less of a place and more of wherever my people are and a state of mind, a perspective I have gained through age and experience. For me, this is the overall feeling I get listening to Long Time Coming.
Whatever home means to you, Sierra Ferrell’s music encourages us listeners to soak up every experience—the good, the bad, and everything in between, relishing the ride and not worrying so much about where we might land.
Twin Cities Readers Take Note:
Sierra Ferrell will land at 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis November 4, 2021! I already have my ticket, so make sure you get yours fast! See you there!
Jaclyn Nott. Photo credit: Cody Weber.
The graphic designer, webmaster, writer, and editor for the Adventures in Americana site, Jaclyn Nott enjoys a wiiiide range of music—and Americana is just one of many favorites. Her main hustle is grant writing, content writing/editing, and web design, but her true passion is screen- and creative writing.
