CD Review: 3rd Coast Music Magazine

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Reviewer: John Conquest, Editor

Issue: March 2010

You may wonder why being featured on The Biggest Loser is germane to Oklahoma singer-songwriter Clifford’s talents, but she makes no bones about how shedding excess weight—she topped out at 278 pounds—along with the insecurities that addicted her to fattening comfort foods has affected her art. To make the physical changes required major lifestyle changes which, in turn, demanded emotional discipline, so, after losing 100 pounds and more, she didn’t just look like a different person, she was a different person.

To be honest, I haven’t heard her before, but I have it on good authority that Orchid is light years beyond her three previous albums, the biggest single change being that she has developed empathy and broken out of self-imposed boundaries. This is most evident in Raise Your Voice (not on this album) which, written for the Regional Food Bank, brought her to the attention of The Biggest Loser, Redman, about the Trail of Tears, and Blue Bonnets, in which she excerpts Albert Brumley’s I’ll Fly Away to dramatic effect.

Clifford is one of those female singers whose voices are so beautiful that you get mesmerized by the sound without really hearing the words (ever notice that it’s always women? Oh, except Jimmy LaFave), but she’s also a three time Woody Guthrie Award winner as a songwriter and her ten originals soon make their presence known. Greg Johnson got The Blue Door, OKC, rolling by importing Austin artists, but now, with Clifford and John Fullbright, he can feature very competitive homegrown talent. — JC