On Merciless Joke, Pomeroy, age 22, sings with an acoustic twang about farms and cowboys. The 92-year-old Nelson’s Oh What a Stunning World is an album of covers of songs by Rodney Crowell.
DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:
That is FRESH AIR. Our rock critic, Ken Tucker, has been listening to new music, on the lookout for one thing that is not simply leisure. He thinks he is discovered it in albums by two musicians, each of whom are influenced by nation and people music, however who in any other case could not be extra completely different. One is a relative newcomer, 22-year-old Ken Pomeroy. The opposite is a comparatively previous professional, 92-year-old Willie Nelson. Listed here are Ken’s evaluations of Nelson’s “Oh What A Stunning World,” an album of covers of songs by Rodney Crowell, and of Pomeroy’s “Merciless Joke.” He begins with Ken Pomeroy.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “GREY SKIES”)
KEN POMEROY: (Singing) Grey skies, birds that do not fly, hoping for a greater life. You are stealing the grass from the hills, displaying all the emotions you conceal.
KEN TUCKER, BYLINE: It is easy to undertake the angle that pop music is primarily leisure, a pleasing distraction from no matter’s happening in your life or on this planet round you. Typically, nevertheless, you come throughout songs and performers who provide greater than leisure. They supply consolation, nourishment, reassurance. Considered one of these artists is Ken Pomeroy, the 22-year-old lady whose voice started this evaluation. Pomeroy has simply launched an album referred to as “Merciless Joke.” She’s from Oklahoma, a Cherokee Native American. And her songs about farms and cowboys, sung with an acoustic nation twang, mark her as one sensible Excessive Plains drifter.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “FLANNEL COWBOY”)
POMEROY: (Singing) Broke you want a mirror into items, a view of me staring again in disbelief. Honey, I swear I did not imply to. By no means beloved somebody like I beloved you. Flannel cowboy, put your hand in mine. I get misplaced for days in your inexperienced eyes.
TUCKER: In that tune, “Flannel Cowboy,” Pomeroy seeks forgiveness from somebody she wronged, in no small half as a result of she believes they had been meant to be collectively. It is typical of her method on this album, which is stuffed with complicated feelings and pressing wishes. Her narrators do not need to develop into remoted. They don’t seem to be loners. They hope to quell fears by means of relationships that solely strengthen throughout troublesome occasions.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “DAYS GETTING DARKER”)
POMEROY: (Singing) You are speaking too loud. They’ll hear you means up within the sky. With the times getting darker, coyotes are nigh. Time drags on, and there is nothing new to say. My mom retains mendacity, saying there is not any different means. Ship me again to the place I used to be earlier than I knew how this felt. Take me, what I’m no extra. The satan’s hiding within the Bible Belt, the satan’s hiding within the Bible Belt.
TUCKER: I like the best way Pomeroy’s plainspoken verses open up dialogues with the listener. The conversational tone is one thing Willie Nelson perfected a long time in the past. It is what’s made him maybe probably the most intimate pop music interpreter since Frank Sinatra. Today, age has shortened his breath and thinned out the timbre of his voice, nevertheless it’s nonetheless a quiet miracle that pulls you in shut, as on his model of Rodney Crowell’s tune “What Type Of Love.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “WHAT KIND OF LOVE”)
WILLIE NELSON: (Singing) I am going to provide the greatest I may give you, child. That is all I may give. And we’ll reside it one of the best we are able to reside it, child, so long as we reside. What sort of love by no means turns you down? What sort of love lifts you off the bottom, turns your life round? What sort of love makes you exit within the wind and the driving rain? What sort of love runs by means of your coronary heart with a pleasure so near ache? What sort of love? Solely this love I’ve.
TUCKER: Up to now, Nelson has recorded different album-long salutes to a few of his favourite songwriters and singers equivalent to Ray Worth and Roger Miller, and Lefty Frizzell. This one feels a bit of completely different. One of the best moments listed here are when he takes maintain of a few of Rodney Crowell’s more moderen songs, not the hits. These are reflective, contemplative compositions. Like Ken Pomeroy’s work, it is about appreciating individuals and rekindling connections.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “I WOULDN’T BE ME WITHOUT YOU”)
NELSON: (Singing) Typically I take into consideration leaving, as if I had some place to go. I’d even crank up the engine and roll down the road only for present. No person mentioned it was simple, however that does not imply it ain’t proper. I do not need no person else with me when it comes time to name it an evening. To this point, I’ve saved each promise, and this I am going to proceed to do. I like you want no person’s enterprise, and I would not be me with out you.
TUCKER: There is a 70-year age distinction between Ken Pomeroy and Willie Nelson, however I hear a similarity of their targets – to withstand despair, to get us to search for from our telephones and look into somebody’s eyes. They’re each making lovely music for tumultuous occasions.
BIANCULLI: Ken Tucker reviewed “Oh What A Stunning World,” by Willie Nelson and “Merciless Joke,” by Ken Pomeroy. On Monday’s present, journalist Elizabeth Bruenig joins us to speak about her haunting new Atlantic cowl story about serving as a witness to state-sanctioned executions. We’ll speak about what she noticed, what it means and the way overlaying the demise penalty has formed her religion. I hope you possibly can be part of us.
(SOUNDBITE OF BILL FRISELL’S “EGG RADIO”)
BIANCULLI: Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with extra engineering assist by Joyce Lieberman and Julian Herzfeld. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I am David Bianculli.
(SOUNDBITE OF BILL FRISELL’S “EGG RADIO”)
Copyright © 2025 NPR. All rights reserved. Go to our web site phrases of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for additional data.
Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts might range. Transcript textual content could also be revised to appropriate errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org could also be edited after its unique broadcast or publication. The authoritative file of NPR’s programming is the audio file.