Personnel: Mary-Chapin Carpenter (vocals, acoustic guitar); Joe Diffie (vocals); John Jennings (acoustic & electric guitars, bass, percussion, programming, background vocals); John Jorgenson, Mike McAdam (electric guitar); Jerry Douglas (dobro); Paul Franklin (pedal steel); Jon Carroll (piano, synthesizer, background vocals); Matt Rollings, John Jarvis (piano); Benmont Trench (Hammond B-3 organ); Edgar Meyer (acoustic bass); J.T. Brown (bass, background vocals); Denny Dadmun-Bixby, Bob Glaub (bass); Robbie Magruder, Andy Newmark (drums); Amy Ray, Emily Saliers, Shawn Colvin, Rosanne Cash (background vocals).
Producers: John Jennings, Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Steve Buckingham.
Recorded at Bias Studios, Springfield, Virginia and The Doghouse,
Nashville, Tennessee.
"Passionate Kisses" won the 36th Annual Grammy Awards for Country Vocalist, Female and Country Song.
"He Thinks He'll Keep Her" was nominated for Record Of The Year in the 37th Annual Grammy Awards.
From COME ON COME ON's opening song, "The Hard Way," the listener is immediately struck with the fact that Mary-Chapin Carpenter's pop/folk songs are not the usual country fare.
The Cajun rave-up "Down At The Twist And Shout," with Cajun band Beausoleil, joyously turns the perception of a honky tonk around on its boot heels. The humorous "I Feel Lucky," romps through a world of horoscopes and lotteries, where Carpenter sits at a bar with "Dwight Yoakam...in a corner trying to catch my eye, Lyle Lovett's right beside me with his hand on my thigh...I feel lucky." She belts it out, country style, in the punchy "Passionate Kisses" and the hooky "Walking Through Fire."
As with most of her songs, the moody monologue "I Am A Town" distills complex emotions from terse, taut poetic lyrics. Even the irrepressible "I Take My Chances" has a studied, articulate statement underlying it. In this one, she stands on a train track while a train approaches, "...just to see how my heart would react." "He Thinks He'll Keep Her" is a narrative of the dissolution of a fifteen-year-old marriage; with its driving beat and pondering melody, we are taken from despair to hope.
This hit-laden disc should draw even more listeners to the genre-busting music of the the warm, literate voice of Mary-Chapin Carpenter.
Professional Reviews
Entertainment Weekly (1/7/93, p.124) - Ranked #7 in Entertainment Weekly's list of the Top 10 Albums Of 1992.
Entertainment Weekly (7/17/92, p.54) - "...Carpenter's sharpest, least wimpy record...she sings these songs with a new edge and directness....In essence, she has discovered her backbone..." - Rating: A
Q (1/93, p.70) - Included in Q's list of the 50 Best Albums Of 1992.
Q (10/92, p.81) - 4 Stars - Excellent - "...Carpenter lets her whole self loose in her music...she sings with the rare cheesewire cut of Hank Williams..."
Musician (9/92, p.106) - "...Too tuneful to be marginalized and too smart to settle for hack work, Carpenter is less a product of Nashville's rejuvination than proof that the singer/songwriter aesthetic is back..."
Audio Magazine (9/92, p.105) - "...Mary-Chapin Carpenter's evolution as a songwriter and artist continues...a thoroughly entertaining album..."
