“miller_julie”
Julie Miller
Broken Things
Hightone
“You can have my heart, if you don’t mind broken things,” Julie offers in the title cut. I am convinced that she knows that of which she speaks. This is a woman who has apparently worked her way through depression and sadness at some point in her past. I have never heard the likes of what she writes written by anybody who hasn’t really been there. Fortunately for the rest of us who she shares these songs with, she is also a woman whose abiding faith has apparently sustained her through it all. Had I not known this, I might worry about her potential for dropping off of some emotional abyss at some point. Most people who are able to draw things this emotional from this deep in themselves eventually do. Her little girl voice and deep lyrics combine to create a body of work that is so multi-leveled that it’s sometimes hard to believe that so much of her strength seems to be anchored simply in her faith and her belief in the power of love, but it is. Her songs sound so beautiful and innocent until you listen very close, then they’ll sometimes rip your heart out. It makes you just want to hug her. A simply beautiful piece of work, aided by her husband, Buddy Miller, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Victoria Williams, and Patty Griffin.
Hightone Records, 220 4th St. #101, Oakland, CA 94607; http://www.hightone.com
