Mikaela Davis has had a bit of an unconventional career path thus far, but it’s served her well. A conservatory harpist, singer-songwriter, and jam-band darling, Davis has carved out a niche for herself and amassed quite the roster of collaborators and cosigners. How many artists can say they’ve fronted a Grateful Dead cover band (delightfully titled Grateful Shred) and played with the side projects of not one but two founding members of the Dead themselves?
Davis’s fifth solo album is her most star-studded: her vocals mesh delicately with Madison Cunningham’s and Tim Heidecker’s on upbeat opener “(Looking Through) Rose-Colored Glasses” and play off Carolina queen Karly Hartzman’s on “Junk Love.” Mid-album ballad “Mizmoon” is a cover of sorts; Cass McCombs wrote the track but never officially released it, instead bestowing it upon Davis to dress up in tinkering chimes, suspenseful harp plucks, deep snare hits, and some distorted howling at the outro. Neil Francis’ bluesy organ chords on “Nothin’s on the Radio” and James Felice’s mournful accordion on the slow piano ballad “Spring Petals in the Snow” help to thicken Graceland Way’s desert-hot stew of folksy Laurel Canyon psychedelia, honky tonk twang, and bar band choogle.
Graceland Way takes its title from the Chevy Chase Canyon street on which the album was recorded, as well as its clear predecessors in Americana mythmaking: Elvis, Paul Simon. Its production—a collaboration between Davis, John Lee Shannon, and Dan Horne—is smooth and expansive; each instrument comes through cleanly and with ample room to reverberate and run around. Davis’ harp playing—her former calling card—takes a more supporting but still crucial role on Graceland Way, its gauzy flutter pushing “Rose Colored-Glasses” to transcendent heights, stirring the moonlit love potion of “Wild Flower,” and sweeping “Junk Love”’s playful omnichord into a jaunty little dance.
In its place, chunky chords and fierce licks lead the way, like the ones on “Nothin’s on the Radio.” Davis’ delivery is easy-breezy, not unlike the Cali-country cool of Jenny Lewis’ solo records, as she spins yarns about early memories of rock ’n roll and life on the road: “Way back in ’93 / Mr. Jones, my mama, and me / Climbed in my daddy’s Jeep / Music playing would rock me to sleep.” Though its generic chorus leaves a bit to be desired (“Take me higher, baby, like my favorite song”), “Nothin’s on the Radio” swaggers and stomps hard enough to more than make up for the lapse at its lyrical center. After all, the equally bouncy heartland rock ballad, “Starlite Tonite” suffers just as much (which is to say, not terribly, but enough to be noticeable) from its overly verbose and flowery visual metaphors (“Snow white covered forest / The red river of fire / Midnight ebony black / You’re here at last”).
Davis is at her best when she keeps it simple. She’s got undeniable pop country chops, should she ever want to go that route. Graceland Way’s catchiest track, “Rose Colored Glasses,” could easily pass for something off Kacey Musgraves’s Golden Hour (especially the excellent couplet “If wishes were horses then I’d be a cowboy / and not a rodeo clown”). Up there with it is “Junk Love,” which, like its sweet yet shallow love affair, is just saccharine enough. “You’re a jawbreaker, yeah, you’re red hot, baby… I can taste the rainbow in your sugar kisses,” Davis sings with Sheryl Crow sass; Hartzman’s enthusiastic ad-libs of “uh-huh!” and “fuck yeah!” are, to meet Davis’ confectionery turns of phrase where they’re at, the cherries on top.
This directness extends to the record’s heavier moments: closer “(That’s Not) Who I Wanna Be” skewers bottomless wealth and inhumanity over an impassioned, fiddle-forward waltz; “The Wrong Way,” which lands somewhere between line-dancing and headbanging, highlights systemic inequality: “Another day in paradise / But everything has got its price.” Regardless of the subject material or the instrument she wields, Davis is adept at telling it like it is. Graceland Way is a paean to folk, country, and Americana history, and storied as these intersecting sonic lineages are, Mikaela Davis speaks to them plainly and with an easy authority, holding firmly to her roots as she reaches for the stars. [Kill Rock Stars]
Grace Robins-Somerville is a writer from Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in Pitchfork, Stereogum, The Alternative, ANTICS, Marvin, Swim Into The Sound and her “mostly about music” newsletter, Our Band Could Be Your Wife.
