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Infamous Angel

by Iris DeMent

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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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      $9 USD  or more

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    30th anniversary reissue of Infamous Angel. Compact disc arrives in a Digipak. Remastered by Mike Westbrook of MW Audio.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Infamous Angel via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $16 USD or more 

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    30th anniversary reissue of Infamous Angel, pressed on black vinyl. Remastered by Mike Westbrook of MW Audio.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Infamous Angel via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $15 USD or more 

     

1.
2.
These Hills 03:40
3.
4.
5.
Our Town 05:00
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10.
Mama's Opry 03:25
11.

about

Iris DeMent released Infamous Angel in 1992. Nearly 30 years later, the album remains among the most singular and fully realized singer-songwriter debuts since the invention of that category in the early '70s. The abiding strengths of the album are especially impressive ' even a bit startling ' because 1992 is not a moment usually associated with her intimate brand of acoustic country music. In country history, the year 1992 is most immediately affiliated with Garth Brooks, whose album, The Chase, topped both the country and pop album charts that year, and with Billy Ray Cyrus' 'Achy Breaky Heart,' which fueled a line dance craze. Squeezed into a playlist alongside such hits, DeMent's doleful, hushed 'Our Town' would've sounded as if it were being broadcast from another planet. 'People call me country,' she told journalist Ben Thompson while on tour in Britain a couple years later. 'But country doesn't call me country.'

Let's call her country. The genre is always more expansive than what radio stations program. It happened Infamous Angel is close kin to a different sort of country music that was just then having a moment: specifically, country singer-songwriters, focusing on personal, but universal, loss and hope and favoring small acoustic combos. It may have been out of step with the mainstream, but Infamous Angel arrived right on time.

credits

released October 7, 1992

1992 Yep Roc Records.

Iris DeMent: vocal, acoustic guitar
Mark Howard: acoustic guitar
Stuart Duncan: fiddle, mandolin
Pete Wasner: piano
Al Perkins: Dobro
Jerry Douglas: Dobro on “Infamous Angel”
Roy Husky, Jr.: upright bass
Emmylou Harris: harmony vocal on “Mama’s Opry”
Jim Rooney: harmony vocals on “Fifty Miles of Elbow Room”
Flora Mae DeMent: lead vocal on “Higher Ground”
The Infamous Angel Choir (“Higher Ground”): Iris DeMent, Jim Rooney, Hal Ketchum, Jeff Black

Produced by Jim Rooney

Recorded at The Cowboy Arms Hotel & Recording Spa, Nashville, Tennessee
Engineers: Rich Adler, Jim Rooney
Mixed at Jack’s Tracks Recording Studio, Nashville, Tennessee
Engineer: Rich Adler
Mastered at Georgetown Masters, Nashville, Tennessee
Engineer: Denny Purcell

Cover Photography by Kelley McCall
Design by Scott Billington

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Iris DeMent Kansas City, Missouri

Iris DeMent makes music that celebrates humanity’s efforts toward salvation, while acknowledging that most of our time on Earth is spent reconciling with the fact that we don’t feel so redeemed. Grounded in hymns, early country songs, gospel and folk, DeMent’s work is treasured by those who know it for its insight and unabashed beauty. ~ NPR ... more

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