Cherise Carver, from Arkansas, has just released her debut single, Get Back Home and we’ve had the pleasure of taking a listen here at the Send Me Your Ears studio today. Cherise endearingly describes herself as a “middle aged, middle class woman in her 50s with a dream and a song” and asks “how would you like to be a part of that revolution?” Hell yeah we would!
There’s something really charming about Cherise’s story. Almost the kind of thing you’d hear on X Factor or other such similar show. But Cherise has more class than X Factor… Her debut single shows that.
Get Back Home is a Red Dirt Country song that sits comfortably within the sweet spot for commercial radio length at 3m8s. We feel Get Back Home is a strong candidate for air play across the Southern States. As with all good Red Dirt music, there’s some great lyrics that take front and centre stage; “spend my time thinking about what might have been” and “sitting in the middle of the lies I tell myself, like I’m not good enough”. These are really evocative lines that paint a simple picture of a woman who just doesn’t want to leave it too late to see if she’s got what it takes.
Get Back Home has an almost Eagles feel to it and Carver certainly has the potential to be a female version of Stoney LaRue, whose music we also love.
Carver has a great, characterful and strong country voice. The incidental backing vocals are smooth and sit spot on behind the lead vocals filling out the sound.
There’s some really classy incidental slide guitar work in this song that sits it well and truly in the country genre. The chorus is catchy and we found ourselves singing along by the second time around.
A well mixed song, we’d suggest a high pass at 35Hz to eliminate any rumble in the track that most home stereo systems can’t handle. This will give a little more headroom to the track. The kick is beautiful and comes through nicely. The high pass suggested will help it stand out even more.
To bring the track more into line with commercial releases we’d suggest a multi-band compressor , compressor and limiter with make up gain to increase the overall volume as it’s just a touch quieter (by perhaps 5dB) than similar tracks by household names.
We have no doubt that Cherise Carver is a name that you’ll be hearing a great deal of on the Red Dirt Country scene over the next few years. This is one of the most promising debut songs we’ve heard in a long time