Hymns of the 49th Parallel

When k.d. lang released her first major-label album in 1987, she caused considerable controversy within the traditional world of country music. With her vaguely campy approach, androgynous appearance, and edgy, rock-inflected music, very few observers knew what to make of her or her music, although no one questioned her considerable vocal talents. That confusion never quite dissipated over the course of her career, even when she abandoned country music for torchy adult contemporary pop in 1992 with her fourth album, Ingenue.

Born in Alberta, Canada, lang was first drawn toward music while she was in college. In particular, she was attracted to the music of Patsy Cline. She became acquainted with Cline's music while she was preparing to star in a collegiate theatrical production based on the vocalist's life. Soon, lang immersed herself within Cline's life and music and decided that she would pursue a career as a professional singer. With the help of guitarist/co-songwriter Ben Mink, she formed a band, named the re-clines in tribute to Patsy Cline, in 1983, and they recorded a debut album, Friday Dance Promenade, which received some positive notices in independent papers. A follow-up album, A Truly Western Experience, was released in 1984 and received even better reviews and led to national attention. In 1985, lang was named the Most Promising Female Vocalist by the Juno Awards.

All of the Canadian attention led to the interest of a number of American record labels. Sire signed lang in early 1986, and she recorded her first record for the label later that year. The result, Angel With a Lariat, was produced by Dave Edmunds and appeared in the fall of 1986. The mix of '50s-styled ballads, kitschy rockabilly, and honky tonk numbers on Angel With a Lariat received good reviews, especially from rock critics. The album had heavy support from college radio as well as cutting-edge country stations. Though it was a mainstream hit in Canada and an underground smash in the U.S., Nashville resisted lang, especially her tongue-in-cheek concert appearances. As she was recording her second Nashville album in 1987, lang duetted with Roy Orbison on his old hit "Crying," which was recorded for the film Hiding Out. The single was released at the end of the year and was hit, marking her first appearance on the country charts.

Shadowland, her second Sire album, made her debt to Patsy Cline explicit. Recorded with Cline's producer, Owen Bradley, the album lacked the campy humor of Angel With a Lariat, which helped it succeed in traditional country circles -- "I'm Down to My Last Cigarette," the first single from the record, was her first to break the country Top 40. Shadowland became a sizable word-of-mouth hit, both in modern country and alternative music circles, which led to it going gold. The following year lang released the harder-edged Absolute Torch and Twang, which increased her mainstream American country audience, in addition to being a college radio and Canadian hit. lang won a Grammy -- Best Country Vocal Performance, Female -- for the album in 1989, and "Full Moon of Love" became a Top 25 hit in the summer of 1989. The attention made lang a minor celebrity, which meant that when she launched a protest against meat eating in 1990, it became a media sensation.

Before the release of her fourth album, lang declared that she was a lesbian in an interview in The Advocate, which could have been a risky proposition, since Nashville's industry was notorious for not accepting people that fell outside of the margins of the mainstream. However, the new album was not a country album. Ingenue was a set of adult contemporary pop that owed very little to country. Its first single, "Constant Craving," became a Top 40 American hit and won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, leading the album to platinum status in America, Britain, and Australia; it went double platinum in Canada.

Ingenue won lang a new audience, but she didn't immediately produce a follow-up to the album. Instead, her next recorded work was the largely instrumental soundtrack for Gus Van Zant's film adaptation of Tom Robbins' Even Cowgirls Get the Blues in 1993; the soundtrack was actually released several months before the before the film. It wasn't until 1995 that lang delivered All You Can Eat, her full-fledged follow-up to Ingenue. All You Can Eat continued the pop direction of its predecessor, showing no traces of country. The album didn't enjoy the mass commercial acceptance of Ingenue, but it was a moderate success, proving that she had a dedicated cult following. lang continued to follow her pop-oriented instincts on 2000's Invincible Summer, while embracing traditional popular standards on 1997's Drag (a collection of songs about smoking) and in her duet with Tony Bennett on his 2001 set Playing With My Friends: Bennett Sings The Blues. (lang also went out on the road with Bennett for a successful co-headlining concert tour.) In 2004, after lang's contract with Sire Records ran its course, she signed with the artist-friendly Nonesuch imprint and recorded Hymns of the 49th Parallel, a collection of tunes by Canadian songwriters.

In 1988, Stompin' Tom Connors, the most fiercely patriotic Canadian musician to ever take the stage in the land of the Maple Leaf, wrote a song in tribute to fellow Canadian k.d. lang for continuing to hang her hat in Alberta after enjoying a commercial breakthrough in the United States. It's hard to say what Stompin' Tom thinks about lang these days, now that she's an out-of-the-closet lesbian, an animal rights activist, and (gulp) spending most of her time in America, but it's a good bet he approves of Hymns of the 49th Parallel, in which lang turns her attention exclusively to the work of Canadian tunesmiths. Anchored by classic songs from Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and Leonard Cohen (all of whom rate two songs each), Hymns of the 49th Parallel is not so much a flag-waving celebration of Canada as an appreciation of the often spare and evocative style of its best-known lyricists (or at least that's the case with the material on board), and lang and frequent collaborator Ben Mink have matched the selections with production and arrangements that are simple and to the point, with only a piano/bass/drums trio for accompaniment (though a string section pops in every once in a while). With her phrasing subdued and her projection scaled back from the big-as-all-outdoors sound of her early days, lang seems to have kept her own instrument in check as well, though her best moments still inspire a very real awe. Though lang has chosen some superb songs (and written a fine one herself in the album's only original, "Simple") and performed them with obvious love and affection, Hymns of the 49th Parallel seems oddly lacking in passion; perhaps in deference to the frozen North, this album has a cool and frosty undertow that seems designed to hold the listener at arm's length, despite the inarguable beauty of its craft. Perhaps for the follow-up, she should bring in Stompin' Tom for a duet on "The Hockey Song" to liven things up.— Mark Deming