Albums of 2018, Honorable Mention: "Produced by Dave Cobb"

"Number one is the voice.  That's what people respond to the most, the singer is everything."

- Dave Cobb

Dave Cobb is a busy man.  If you look at his recording credits, it's common to see his name credited on as many as six albums per year, whether as producer, recorder, mixer, or instrumentalist (or some combination of the above).  For artists associated with Nashville, he's become close to omnipresent, working with Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, Jamey Johnson, Chris Stapleton, Kris Kristofferson, John Prine, and even the Oak Ridge Boys, among others.

2018 was no different.  There were other albums in addition to those pictured above, but for the purposes of my "Best of 2018" series, I'll focus on these four.  And while they share a link to common styles of music, the production approach on each is geared toward the singer's voice.

On "By the Way, I Forgive You," Brandi Carlile's  singing sounds as if her voice might break at any given moment, almost as if she's manipulating an internal tremolo lever.  The instrumentation never gets in the way, and of course it helps that this may be the best collective group of songs that Carlile has ever written for an album.  The album's peak is achieved early on, with the magnificent opener "Every Time I Hear That Song" - one of the year's best songs.  That none of the succeeding songs quite match up is just a testament to the greatness of the opener; "The Mother," "Fulton County Jane Doe," "The Joke," and "Party of One" all come close.  Side note: on this one, Cobb co-produced with his friend and colleague Shooter Jennings.

Speaking of Shooter Jennings, let's move over to "Shooter," which takes a fairly straightforward approach to Jennings' not-quite-but-close-to gravelly voice.  Jennings can sound soulful, he can handle ballads with aplomb, and he can come across as a whiskey-fueled rocker when the occasion demands.  The album's highlight is the lovely "Rhinestone Eyes," as good a love song as was released in 2018, but don't discount "Bound Ta Git Down," a perfect companion piece to Skynyrd's "I Know a Little," "Shades & Hues," or "I'm Wild & My Woman is Crazy."

Amanda Shires has an extraordinary voice, one that seemingly was created to provide perfect harmony vocals.  But the voice is so light, that on her previous album "My Piece of Land," it sometimes seemed to get lost in the songs, as if it were a leaf blowing away in the wind.  On "To the Sunset," Cobb has constructed a musical approach - almost hard pop-like on some songs - that allows Shires' voice to drive the songs, which is something I wouldn't have thought possible before now.  And the songs are uniformly strong, with "Swimmer," "Leave it Alone," and "Break Out the Champagne" standing out.

I'm not sure how to describe Ashley Monroe's voice except to say that it's a classic country voice - more powerful than Shires' or Carlile's, but also capable of achieving vulnerability in the upper register.  On "Sparrow," Cobb's demonstrates his versatility by working with Monroe to construct a sound that is nothing like what you hear on the other three albums.  Driven by strings, bass and organ on some songs as much as guitar or drums, it sounds a bit like a fusion of countrypolitan with some of the sounds you might have heard on a Jerry Wexler or Willie Mitchell produced record in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  The approach works particularly well on the title track, "Hard on a Heart," "Wild Love," and "This Heaven," but there really isn't a weak cut on the record.

Dave Cobb is at the point of his career where he can work as much or as little as he wants.  No doubt, there will be an album or two released in 2019 that ends up on next year's list of the year's best.  Because the best artists clearly want to work with him.