Rosie Carney “Bare”

And now for some spare acoustic balladry of the highest order. While there is a real folk fragility to “Bare”, it brought to mind something surprising. Okay, there’s a bit in Aretha Franklin’s desperately emotional 1968 classic “Ain’t No Way” about halfway through where she takes her vocal up an octave and you can hear her physically move away from the microphone. And as glorious as the whole song is, that 15 seconds or so steamrolls everything that came before it and quite literally lifts everything to heaven. Well within “Bare” there exists a similar moment: there is an ascending vocal line about 2 1/2 minutes in that is just mind blowingly beautiful, stunning (it’ll induce some involuntary sighing) and instantly takes an already beautiful song up to some other level. Yes, “Bare” is a completely different kind of record than “Ain’t No Way” but it’s just as fraught with real emotion, and Rosie’s vocal so took me to that same place, to that same awestruck feeling. Yes, really beautiful.