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The Investment 2:120:00/2:12
Review of, Between the Sun and the Moon, by Rick Huff of Western Way Magazine
The prolific Texas Cowboy Poet Teresa Burleson again takes us there – into the daily doings of chores, into history, into the core of rural survival. Being the Director of the Stockyards Museum, she is surrounded by inspirations, but she also lives the life. As a rule, Teresa Burleson’s poems are direct with instantly approachable images, and this collection of her works is no exception. Since she also sings (and quite well), a couple of poems here are musically framed. One of them called “Jenny’s Regret” features parts of Michael Burton’s famous “Cowboy’s Lament” providing bookends as the “girlfriend back home” it mentions states her side of things. More picks include “Breaking the Ice” (on a cold winter morning), “Don’t Tell My Wife” (a true tale of no horse sense), “Fake Meat” (the real ‘where’s the beef’), “What About Me? (a secondary status that is all too familiar) and “If Those Pens Could Talk” (the Chamber of Commerce won’t approve). This CD from Teresa Burleson is particularly recommended for those who take their Cowboy Poetry straight-no-chaser! Thirteen tracks
Review of The Calf Book by Rick Huff of Western Way Magazine
Poet Teresa Burleson is no stranger to either the Western life or to Western audiences. Her newest release offers more of her views of the former to the latter.
In “Cowgirl Way” she clearly states and demonstrates that strength comes in different dressing, but also she affirms making a hand doesn’t mean she hands off her feminine side. The title track “The Calf Book” illustrates it all comes out in the wash, and that is the problem, unfortunately! In “The Message” she arguably equates the shameful Indian betrayal with loss of rights today. And a particular turn of phrase from “Gettin’ Lucky” caught my ear: “Visions of cowboys two-stepped in their heads.” Covers include Luke Reed’s “One-Eyed Jack”; Larry McWhorter’s brief but dead-on “Therapy”; and on Daron Little’s “The Bell Song” the CD engineer happened to record Burleson singing part of the words she intended to only recite and blended singing with recitation together in post. Good capture!
Some friends help on the album with music intros and outros. They include Aarom Meador (guitar/mandolin/Native flute), Devon Dawson (drum/Scottish bodran) and Kristyn Harris (fiddle). Eleven tracks.
Review of The Legend Remains, by Rick Huff of Western Way Magazine.
"Poet Teresa Burleson has once again offered a collection of her gentle cowboy observations and recollections. Admittedly venturing outside her comfort zone for one of the tracks, she sings (quite well) Tex Butler’s “I Reckon I’m A Texan!” She gathered a good support system for it, though, in a crew of Texas swingers that include Rich O’Brien and Brook Wallace (fiddles) with O’Brien handling guitar duties along with Devon Dawson and with Kristyn Harris playing bass.
Poetically the requisite cow poop humor resides in “Going Green,” for which various unrealized commercial applications are explored…”Eau de Toilette” (?). Elsewhere you come across the impact of hands-on living, the hidden spirit of vanishing towns, the joys of mothering a calf or a good rain in a bad drought.
Burleson’s messages are simple and clear. For her fans, it’s whole cloth for the ear! Twelve tracks."