Winona Wilde - Wasted Time (2017)

On her third album, Wasted Time, the much-travelled Canadian singer/songwriter continues to redefine the image of the troubadour, documenting her life and observing the world with both biting wit and heartbreaking honesty. It’s an approach that echoes some of country music’s greatest composers, such as Townes Van Zandt and Billy Joe Shaver, so it’s no surprise that she was named a winner of the 2017 Kerrville (Texas) Folk Festival’s New Folk competition.

However, what is revealed in the music tells only part of Winona Wilde’s story. A child of Iraqi parents, she was born Noosa Al-Sarraj and became infatuated with playing classical music on piano at a young age. At the same time, her country music-loving nanny planted the seeds for her future devotion to artists like John Prine, Hank Williams and Loretta Lynn, and by her teens she discovered a natural ability to write songs in a similar style.

Al-Sarraj produced Wasted Time herself, working at engineer John Dinsmore’s Toronto studio, Lincoln County Social Club. She played most of the instruments herself as well, with contributions by, among others, Alan Mackie on upright bass, Sean Conway on electric guitar Elise Boeur on fiddle, and Sarah Jane Scouten on harmonies and fiddle. In fact, Al-Sarraj cut the basic tracks live, accompanied only by Mackie, in a single 10-hour session. It was a clear indication of the confidence she had in the material.

Calling her latest offering Wasted Time is therefore slightly misleading, as everything she has experienced up to now has gone into this beautiful nine-song collection led by the title track, a bona fide instant honky tonk classic. As Al-Sarraj explains, “On my first album, I was too afraid to be good. On my second album, I was too afraid to be real. This time I feel like I am as real as I can possibly be, and the songwriting is infinitely more vulnerable.”