IRIS DEMENT
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The 33-year-old singer was born in Paragould, Arkansas, into a large family–13 brothers and sisters–and strictly reared in the Pentecostal church. They up and moved to Orange County, California, when she was only three, but tight familial bonds and a close-knit rural mentality were in her blood. Even in the suburbs of Los Angeles, DeMent’s mother raised her on country gospel, regularly playing then-current songs by Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn alongside old hillbilly music by the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers. And as DeMent writes in the liner notes to her first album, Infamous Angel (Warner Brothers), “Mom always sang.” Her mother’s voice was so important to her that she wrote a song about her (“Mama’s Opry”) and gave her the lead vocal on a rendition of the traditional gospel tune “Higher Ground.” Music surrounded her; as a child she made up little songs and played piano around the house. But she didn’t really start writing songs until she was 25.
She eventually ended up in Kansas City, where she began to perform her songs in small coffeehouses. A growing interest in making music took her to Nashville, where she focused on writing rather than singing. It was during this time she was signed to Philo Records, which issued Infamous Angel in 1992. (Warner Brothers reissued it when they signed her last year.) With one album under her belt, she returned to Kansas City.
Although her music slips between stylistic cracks, folk seems to describe it best. While country is certainly her biggest influence, she eschews its conventions. At the heart of her songs are memories and stories; she makes their musical trappings seem delightfully incidental. She boldly stands for what remains good about small-town life: the friendliness, the familiarity, and the genuineness. It’s no small feat, and both in performance and on her recordings you don’t notice the achievement until it’s already passed you by.
