jessica lea mayfield: tell me

For her second album Tell Me, Ohio-born Jessica Lea Mayfield has once again teamed up with producer Dan Auerbach, the seemingly workaholic guitarist of Akron duo The Black Keys, for a more ambitious production that departs even further from the young singer’s roots in the Mayfield family bluegrass band. Having drawn comparisons with Lucinda Williams and Hope Sandoval for her drawled and aloof vocal style, on closer inspection she is neither as countrified as the former nor as detached as the latter. However, her unconventional upbringing out on the road in a rattling old tour bus seems to have bred a premature world weariness within her. Whereas her debut long player, 2009′s With Blasphemy So Heartfelt, dealt in the currency of teenage heartbreak and was rather limited in scope, Tell Me spreads across a broader canvas of experience. As Mayfield has said, “It used to be me getting my heart broken; now it’s about me breaking other people’s hearts.”

What this amounts to is that, as a songwriter, Mayfield has lowered her guard and is unafraid to examine her own behaviour, however reckless it may be. Musically, too, Tell Me is more varied and all the better for it. A drowsy sexiness and an almost indifferent inflection add texture to the catchy first single ‘Our Hearts Are Wrong’, while the ringing guitars and comparatively jaunty handclaps shape the optimistic ‘Blue Skies Again’ (one of two co-writes with brother David Mayfield) into a glorious springtime wake up call that ends with a refrain of Cockney Rebel-style ooh-la-la-las. Elsewhere ‘Grown Man’, a disquietingly intimate song, has its atmosphere belied somewhat by a slightly suspect, low-budget keyboard backing that’s an odd fit with Mayfield’s teasing question to another of her potentially heartbroken admirers, “Are you wondering if I’m really old enough?”

This adventurous streak runs through many of the songs. “That girl is trouble,” sings Mayfield at one point, most likely referring to herself. And the stark opening line of the slide guitar-tinged ‘Sometimes At Night’ is further evidence of her unrestrained spirit. “I broke the little cabana boy’s heart to let you fondle me in the dark,” she relates rather bluntly, but even the shadows can’t provide Mayfield with a place to hide as her eyes “always speak for my mind.” “Where did my self-control go?” she asks on ‘Run Myself Into The Ground’, but rather than a genuine question it feels more like a statement of intent. “My friends they worry,” she admits on the closing ‘Sleepless’, but Mayfield herself doesn’t seem worried at all. A little naïve, yes; somewhat restless, certainly; but vastly more sure of herself and her talents than most other twenty-one year olds.

[Nonesuch; February 28, 2011]

Written by: Lucy Brouwer

Tags: jessica lea mayfield, tell me

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