The Beautiful Bones

Although this is Kelley Hunt’s sixth CD, I have to say I’d never heard of her before. The Kansas City-based singer/songwriter also plays piano and guitar and she’s accompanied here by a group of Nashville all-stars (“my dream team,” Hunt calls them). Bryan Owings’ drumming complements the music rather than commandeering it, Tim Marks’ bass anchors the bottom line admirably, and guitarist John Jackson livens up a few songs, especially “The Sweet Goodbye,” a relaxed churchified ode to saying goodbye to a variety of things (e.g. “Goodbye heartache”). I wasn’t expecting to be so moved by her soulful singing, and “Release and Be Free” is a real tour de force, especially the ending. Accompanied by the McCrary Sisters—the daughters of the late Rev. Samuel McCrary, a founding member of the gospel group the Fairfield Four—Hunt celebrates the power of letting go (“I’ve been carrying this burden long enough”) and being “unafraid to face a brand-new day.” She switches gears on the jumping “When Love Is at the Wheel” (“you can ride me all night long”) and goes further afield on the “Gates of Eden,” an account of a nearly fatal highway accident set to a shimmering guitar that floats over a pulsating rhythm. Very much worth looking for.