by Janet Goodman
Esteemed institution Berklee College of Music has seen its share of future all-stars walk down the halls, such as Paula Cole, Gillian Welch and John Mayer. Nashville singer-songwriter Shantell Ogden is their fellow alum who is on her way, making a mark on the music scene, as well. Her “Stories Behind Songs” is a mighty little collection of tunes that, in her gentle and straight forward manner, pack a respectable punch.
Ogden has a hand in writing all nine tracks on this country folk CD, and is backed by top-shelf studio musicians who give heart to the fiddle, freshness to percussion and subtly to guitar. One can imagine her performing at bustling coffee houses and her songs forcing a hush in the room lest the lyrics not be taken in. She has some meaningful things to say, and she delivers them in a Jewell-like, clear, warm alto with occasional bursts of falsetto that glisten at the highest peaks.
Lyrics flow effortlessly on this record, and one really doesn’t see their power coming until it’s too late. That might be so because of her vocal approachability, or maybe she’s just that good. Ogden has important stories to tell about women, and her sincerity speaks to them on a deep level. On “That Girl,” she wants to stop being a girl who’s getting nowhere with love: “He didn’t call, the candle fades/Catch my reflection on an empty plate….I’m not gonna be that girl/The kind who waits around, never learns/When to walk away and keeps on gettin’ burned.”
Stand-out track, “I Love Different Now,” is a song that could make a listener sit on the edge of her chair at that coffee house: “I don’t recover like I used to/Takes a lot for me to trust/And I’ve come to learn/That even hope can hurt/If you hope too much/I thought love was just like lightning/A flash of passion through my veins/But sometimes it’s so small/You have to choose to fall/And tell your heart to stay.”
Visit the artist’s website at www.shantellogden.com
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