Singer-songwriter Stephanie Sammons shares a folk-flavored collection of songs that excavates the complexities inherent in love, faith and conformity, and in so doing discovers hope and truth buried beneath several layers of life’s debris.
“I feel shame like I feel the wind,” she shares in “Innocence Lost,” the second track, in which she recalls shooting a bird when she was 10 with a Daisy gun, marrying young and the broken heart that followed, and how such incidents and events linger with her, still. (Yes, she was raised in the South.) That, by song’s end, she “feel[s] love like I feel the sun/shining down on me,” doesn’t diminish that yesteryear pain. “This is the cost of innocence lost,” she sings, sounding a lot like—as my wife just confirmed—Shawn Colvin.
“Lazarus” opens with her questioning God’s plan, why some thrive while others barely get by—and wishing she could rise up and walk like the Biblical figure of Bethany, who Jesus raised from the dead. It’s an odd thing to share, and an obvious (to me, at least) metaphor for the overarching conflict that drives the album: being queer in a culture that condemns her. “Maybe if I pray a little harder for the rain that’s gonna fall/Maybe if I wait for the seasons to change/These big things will be resolved,” she sings, prays, hopes. But just as the color of her eyes is what it is, the same is true for who she is.
“Billboard Sign” delves further into the challenges internal and external she endured while coming to terms with and accepting herself: a mother claiming she’d yet to meet the right man; a father who told her she was only welcome in his home if alone; and the person she saw in the mirror each morning, who sat in a pew each Sunday praying for salvation despite living like a saint. It’s thoughtful and poetic, with more going on than can be summed up in a paragraph. “Blood isn’t always thicker than love,” she observes. “Thank God for time and evolution/for a softened heart and resolution.”
The album was produced by Mary Bragg, who sings with Sammons on another of the album’s highlights, “Living and Dying,” in which she explores the faith and doubts that drive her: “I can’t help wonder if this is my time/If I start going under/Will anybody save me?/Did my momma tell me a lie?/is there really more to this life?” The mid-tempo “Mend,” which follows, may well be my favorite track. In it, Sammons owns up to being “the black sheep in a flock of deniers” and asks a question I have for many hot-button issues: “How do we discern between the prophets and the liars?”
The final track, “Holding on to Jesus,” is another gem. It’s a sympathetic portrait of an aging couple and the (non-monetary) riches faith has provided them: “She’s got hope for what tomorrow brings/for she knows that love will always win/He’s holding on to Jesus/She’s holding on to him.” I hear the “him” in this context as lowercase, i.e. her husband—the reverse of my late parents, in a way, as my mother was the one who held religion tight while my dad mostly went along to get along (and, too, to trade VCR tapes with other parishioners). It’s a touching song and fitting end to an excellent album.
According to the press release, Sammons works as a financial planner to support herself, which means she’s accustomed to delving into details in order to help her clients achieve their retirement goals. That attention to detail is also evident throughout Time and Evolution. Small surprise, then, that no less than singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier—who’s written and cowritten a million and one classic tunes (including the best song of this millennium, Allison Moorer’s “Heal”)—calls the album “a beautiful collection of songs that reflect her diligence, hard work and dedication to the art of song.”
The track list:
The Old Grey Cat 