Sing Out! * Vol. 51 #4 * Winter 2008

Clearly Terri Hendrix was doing some heavy-lifting cogitation while writing the songs for The Spiritual Kind. The title track, the album’s core, is a look deep inside that tries to make sense of the bewildering, conflicting ideas folks have about what is the “one true way.” Terri rejects this. She prefers to think whatever path works for you is a right one. And its jaunty melody doesn’t allow the song any darkness at all.

The opener, John Hadley’s “Life’s a Song,” celebrates the power music has to connect. “Bottom of a Hill” is about getting by in the world in whatever harmony you can generate. “Acre of Land” continues this theme from the metaphoric starting point of what you have to do to make a garden grow moving to meditation about one’s resilience and ability to withstand the problems life inevitably tosses your way. Nature imagery also illuminates the introspective “Soul of My Soul.” Then “Things Change” in ways people never expect and as Terri notes, “People forget to tell each other.”

The album also includes stirring versions of Woody Guthrie’s “Pastures of Plenty” and Jimmie Driftwood’s “What is the Color of the Soul.” Both fit perfectly with the album’s running themes.

In “Jim Thorpe’s Blues” Terri relates the story of how “the athelete of the century” was stripped of his records, medals and achievements for small fry causes. Next to last Terri’s spoken “If I Had a Daughter” is a conversation with an as yet possible future child, a remarkably open, candid piece. The album closes with a burst of joyous noise in “Mood Swing.” Here Terri’s “jazz baby” side emerges to send the listener back into the world fingers popping and happy.

As always Terri’s musical partner Lloyd Maines produces and plays all sorts of stringed devices, all brilliantly, too. The band includes Austin A-listers Terri has worked with before, and so has great chemistry with them. Solid, strong work throughout.

Terri Hendrix is at her best on The Spiritual Kind. That is cause for celebration. Thoughtful and tuneful in generous quantities it’s a hard one to resist. - MT