Jessica Willis Fisher has been through one of the worst wringers life has to offer. That she’s still in the arena, making music, is a testament to both her inner strength and—as she expounds upon in “Healing,” the lead-off track on her sophomore album, Blooming—an over-the-counter elixir that’s cured almost every ailing spirit since the dawn of time: “Love is healing my heart, love is healing my soul/Love is healing my body, love is making me whole/Love is teaching me here, love is showing me how/Love is taking me higher, love is healing me now.”
Bluegrass, old-school country, folk and Irish music underpin the Americana-flavored album, while its title conveys the theme that runs through the nine tracks. The Music Row site quotes Fisher as explaining, “There are some flowers that bloom one time and that’s it, but how about we go with the flowers that come back every year?” says Fisher. “I aspire to be a perennial, if you will. Beautiful things take time to grow, to let things evolve. That’s where I feel all these songs have come from. This is the next chapter of both my story and my artistry. For me, those are linked in every way.”
Her delicate yet firm vocals, and the instrumentation that surrounds them, conjure Dolly Parton circa the early 1970s, while her songs are well-crafted miniatures, all. “Dogwood,” released as a single last summer, finds her reflecting on the kind of tree she’d be—trust me when I say it’s deeper than Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees.” “Build a House” contemplates the meaning of home, while “Find a Lover” is simultaneously playful and philosophical about life’s circuitous path: “Hope is a waitin’/With the promise of a winding road/Joy of the journey worth undertakin’….”
On Sunday, while listening to Blooming on an hour-long car ride, “Seeds” left both Diane and I agog; it’s a powerful song that poses the tough questions (“how do I grow when I’m tangled in the weeds?”) that plague many of us. “Honest,” which follows, is another soul-baring treatise, this time about the healing process: “I’d like to say it’s one straight line, but it’s not/You’ll circle back again/It’s not a destination ‘round the bend/It’s a journey as we mend.”
The sweet “June,” as she said on Instagram, retreats from the heavy subjects to tackle something more fun: “that season, that place, that person who makes you feel most alive.” “One of a Kind,” the penultimate track, is a soft-burner about earthy delights, while the frolicsome “The Fox” delves into the yin and yang of life writ large.
It may sound trite to some, I’m sure, but the love Fisher explores throughout Blooming is more than the moon-in-June feeling that sweeps through the heart when we fall for a special someone—though there’s some of that, too. It’s love in the grandest sense of the word, aka the Golden Rule, rooted in the oft-forgotten teachings of the Bible (Leviticus 19:18 and Matthew 22:39, to be specific). They don’t heal all of life’s ills, by any means, but love and compassion—for others, for ourselves—go a long way. It’s a wonderful album.
The tracks:
The Old Grey Cat 