We end the week with two beautiful ballads that are suitable for the holiday weekend.
“Heart Talkin’”
Dee White
Written by Sergio Sanchez and Dee White
JK: His debut record was one of my favorite albums of 2019, and I’m thrilled to have new music from Dee White here in 2025. Even better, he’s not working with Dan Auerbach anymore, and he’s paired up with producer Tony Brown. “Heart Talkin’” immediately strips away all of Auerbach’s Formica-brand “authenticity,” as Brown re-casts White as the classic country star he was always meant to be.
In terms of being on-trend, this single is of a piece with the early 90s-era sounds of Zach Top. And, for as talented as I believe Top is, White’s a far superior singer. Stylistically, “Heart Talkin’” plays out as a song Conway Twitty would’ve cut in his prime, and White croons and elongates his vowels in ways that highlight just how deeply he understood that exact assignment. And Brown matches him at every step.
With so many current stars cosplaying 90s country, “Heart Talkin’” stands apart because White’s technical gifts as a vocalist and the natural warmth of his performances are in league with that era’s finest artists. And a hat-tip to Brown for recognizing White as such and for doing his own best production work in decades. A
KJC: Yes, this is very much neo-nineties country at its very best, and Dee White’s bold and expressive vocals are the key reason why. The song is smartly constructed and sharply written, but without White giving such an impassioned voice to the heart aching to be heard over everything else, it wouldn’t carry such emotional heft.
I echo Jonathan’s kudos to Tony Brown, who when at his best knew how to stay out of the way of George Strait, Mark Chesnutt, and Vince Gill. This is Brown at his best for the first time in a long time, and that just might be because he’s finally working with a formidable talent again. A
“Easy Does It”
Emily Ann Roberts
Written by Autumn Buysse, Jason Haag, and Emily Ann Roberts
KJC: I was thinking when I listened to “Easy Does It” that it sounds like a sweet spot between 90s country and 00s country, and I realized that’s because Emily Ann Roberts is somewhere at the crossroads between Chely Wright and Miranda Lambert as a vocalist.
Wright would’ve knocked this one out of the park back in the day, yet it’s still hard to imagine her surpassing this tender and heartfelt performance from Roberts, who makes a hard case for easy loving that’s ultimately convincing. A
JK: Clever. Beautifully sung. Traditional country without making a whole big thing about it. Roberts’ latest single picks right up where her brilliant debut record, Can’t Hide Country, left off, and I cannot think of one single reason why she isn’t a massive star. She’s making better music than damn near anyone in the genre’s mainstream, and she’s doing so in ways that are widely accessible and fully on-trend.
My worry with Roberts is that we’re looking at the new Kelly Willis. Which, obviously, Kelly Willis is one of my all-time favorite artists, so that’s a “worry” only in the sense that I worry Roberts is going to end up as a missed opportunity for superstardom that country music should be kicking itself over in ten years’ time.
Anyhow, “Easy Does It” ought to serve as a primer for the generation of incels who still don’t understand how the likes of Andrew Tate have lied to them about how a woman actually wants to be treated. Basic decency, kindness, and helpfulness aren’t threats to your masculinity. Wash the goddamn dishes, bud. Hold her hand. Treat women like the complete humans they are. That’s all easy if you aren’t a complete shitheel. Here, Roberts is celebrating a love that she didn’t have to settle for, and what a glorious single this is. A
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