Roots Song of the Week- Ashleigh Flynn “How The West Was Won”

A month and a half ago, I had never heard of Ashleigh Flynn, a Kentucky-born and raised musician with four albums to her credit, including the brand new A Million Stars. Thanks to Erin Scholze at Dreamspider Publicity, I now know who she is…and more than that, I love her music. A Million Stars contains 12 songs, all firmly within the Americana world, each individually enjoyable and ‘stand alone’ ideal. Together, the set traces threads of independence of all sorts of types- personal, historical, intellectual. It appears that Flynn is based in Oregon, the album is produced by Chris Funk (The Decemberists, Black Prairie), and Todd Snider serves as ‘insinspiration.’

This week’s Fervor Coulee Roots Song of the Week is a track that floored me when I heard it while on the way to work one day in early June. I played it three times in a row, and enjoyed it each time. “How The West Was Won” is ‘about’ Calamity Jane, but speaks to the independence all of us need to find at various points in our life: we may not need a horse and gun, but we have to find the gumption to find our own path.

The song itself is the rockingest song of the disc, and to my years sounds like nothing more than Suzi Quatro at her fiery best, albeit with a country edge. Listening to Ashleigh singing this song, I can picture her as a thirteen-year old rockin’ the air-bass listening to “Roxy Roller,” “Tear Me Apart,” “If You Can’t Give Me Love,” and “48 Crash.” Whether that ever happened, I don’t know but the song makes me think of Quatro. More than that, it just sounds great.

“How The West Was Won” can be heard HERE within the player on Ashleigh’s website.

Thanks for visiting Fervor Coulee. Donald