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World Cafe Next: Angaleena Presley

Angaleena Presley.
Blu Sanders
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Courtesy of the artist
Angaleena Presley.

Angaleena Presley's American Middle Class — one of NPR Music's favorite albums of 2014 — is her first solo record. But Presley isn't exactly an unknown entity: As one-third of the Pistol Annies, performing with Miranda Lambert and Ashley Monroe, she's topped the country charts.

As a solo artist, Presley turns an unflinching eye on small-town life in the South. Her songs are populated with down-and-out characters, both fictional and drawn from her own hometown of Beauty, Ky. Inevitably, she both treats them and embodies them with humor, tenderness and brutal honesty.

Hear and download two songs from American Middle Class at the audio link.

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