The story goes that just about every label in Nashville had an opportunity to work with Margo Price, and rejected her. The Illinois-born, longtime Music City resident is steeped in that part of the country music tradition that kicks ass now and takes names later, if the devil and the bottle don't come first. Maybe that's why Third Man Records took Price on, as Jack White continues to cultivate new talent within his adopted city; she was the first country artist that he signed.
It wouldn't be surprising then if the first song to stop Music Row dead in its tracks was the sharp-edged, honky-tonkin' "About To Find Out," a track from Price's debut album, Midwest Farmer's Daughter. This is a cackling, bridge-burning, kiss-my-ass anthem of the tallest order. Co-written with her husband, bassist Jeremy Ivey, Price minces no words with a sweetly cutting twang a la Dolly Parton: "Tell me what does your pride taste like honey or haven't you tried it out? / It's better than the taste of a boot in your face without any shadow of a doubt." Her backing band, the Price Tags, brings the righteous hell home with Micah Hulscher's smirking barroom piano and Luke Schneider's spindly pedal steel. Whomever "About To Find Out" was written for, may God have mercy on your rotten, clueless soul.
Midwest Farmer's Daughter comes out March 25 on Third Man.
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