Some days you just gotta turn up the volume and escape. Whether that means pressing the pedal to the metal and speeding down the highway or simply dancing across the room with the kitten(s) of your dreams, well, that’s up to you. Either/or—or any other scenario you can come up with—the new EP from country firecracker Kaitlin Butts, The Yeehaw Sessions, provides a perfect soundtrack. It’s a cheeky good time.
The five-track set is rollicking, raucous, uplifting—and road-tested. Butts explained on her Instagram page, “I made these live(ish) recordings with my band and they’re all songs we played hundreds of times on tour and we recorded them so that you could bring a piece of the Roadrunner Tour home with you!” The fun begins with Chappell Roan’s saucy “Red Wine Supernova,” which trades champagne for a twin bed.
The EP continues with the ode to her home town recorded by both Don Williams and Eric Clapton, “Tulsa Time.” She also revisits her spirited “You Ain’t Gotta Die (To Be Dead to Me)” from her engaging Roadrunner! album; it went viral on social media earlier this year, so it makes sense that she includes it here, as well. The Chicks’ “Sin Wagon” ups the tempo, with Butts’ incendiary vocals all but exploding across the lyrics. “When it’s my turn to march up to old glory/I’m gonna have one hell of a story,” indeed.
The fun turns serious with the heartfelt “The Middle,” Jimmy Eat World’s inspirational song from 2001 about surviving a rough patch. (The band wrote it after their label dropped them in the late 1990s due to dismal sales.) It’s a cogent reminder that life is essentially a series of ups and downs, and that trying times generally give way to better days.
All in all, The Yeehaw Sessions is a cool collection of (mostly) covers that’s well worth plenty of plays. Butts possesses one of popular music’s most distinctive and expressive voices, and it’s on full display here.
The Old Grey Cat 