Staci Griesbach - My George Jones Songbook (2021)

Staci Griesbach found a lane and has been driving in it for a while now. The Los Angeles-based, Hortonville, WI-rooted jazz chanteuse has released her third album of interpretations of songs associated with country singers. But with My George Jones Songbook, Griesbach tackles her greatest challenge in a series she could ride out for untold volumes more.

Unlike her previous subjects of tribute-Patsy Cline and Shania Twain, Jones never crossed over to great pop acceptance but his litany of hits encompasses a range of themes from the humorously cornball to probably more famously the devastatingly desolate. Griesbach and her accompanists mostly succeed at bringing fresh, thoughtful nuance to a catalog that should likely daunt less flexible vocalists. With an instrument pitched somewhere between Rosemary Clooney sass and Diana Krall smokiness, Griesbach arguably shines brightest on the sadder of the 14 Jones selections in her Songbook, excelling at heartbreaking lyrics with a warm balance of third-person emotional removal and empathy.

On the album's few jauntier and goofier numbers, it’s easy to hear the smile in Griesbach’s voice, even if she occasionally teeters in her phrasing and emotional tack. Her musical approaches spanning small piano ensembles, brass-heavy funk and Western swing accents that would do The Quebe Sisters proud and more fittingly recast the textual breadth of Jones’ work as well.