Corinne Gooden

“All My Days” is the impressive debut from folk singer/songwriter Corinne Gooden. Throughout the album, Gooden shows magnificent control of her voice and has an emotional inflection that heightens the personal sentiments in her writing. Her vocal performance is similar to contemporary female singer/songwriters like Paula Cole, Sarah McLachlan, and Bonnie Raitt. Gooden’s lyrics are very personal and honest, and she sings them with such conviction and melody that the listener becomes hooked and must know what she’ll sing about next. The musical arrangements are also quite good, highlighted by fantastic piano/organ progressions and beautiful acoustic guitar that skillfully back Gooden’s vocal performance. The recording quality of “All My Days” is excellent, so the vocals and arrangements are clean and crisp, leaving nothing to be desired. The title track, “All My Days,” is a slow, sad, and personal song with a piano and guitar accompaniment in which Gooden shows her tremendous vocal range. “Goodbye” is a more uptempo rock number about learning how to say goodbye to someone you don’t necessarily want to ever say goodbye to. Overall, “All My Days” is a superb debut from a talented singer/songwriter that knows how to write her feelings down and vocalize them. Fans of good folk lyricists and female vocalists should check out this excellent CD.
- -Chris and the RadioIndy.com Reviewer Team

Born in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Corinne Gooden grew up surrounded by natural beauty. As a young singer/songwriter and producer, some of that beauty has woven its way into her songwriting. Gooden's 2008 debut, All My Days is a lushly orchestrated yet understated beauty.

Corinne Gooden's earliest musical heroes were bands like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and The Allman Brothers. Over time she developed for some of the finest singer-songwriters of the 1970s and 1980s (James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Patti Griffin, etc). It was these later influences that have helped inspire and inform her songwriting. All My Days is full of intimate story songs that rely as much on the patchwork narratives as on the verdant orchestrations.

All My Days opens with You've Got Me, a radio-ready track if I've ever heard one. It's also a great introduction to Corinne Gooden's voice which is full and deep in a way you might not expect. It's a beautiful voice that I could picture just as easily handling blues, jazz or soul in addition to pop/rock. All My Days (title track) is a wistful look at loss. Anything At All is so full of palpable longing it will leave you breathless, and Come This Far marks the fall from grace of a relationship once held dear.

Other highlights include the gorgeous Leaving A Life, the upbeat Goodbye and the fall afternoon sunshine of 17th Street. And don't miss the last song, Last Chance (In the Moonlight). This stripped down number goes with a basic finger-picking style to provide texture and rhythm as a counterpart to Gooden's voice. It may be best musical afterthought you'll hear this year.

Corinne Gooden is going to be compared to artists such as Patti Griffin and Joan Baez. Her voice is an incredibly distinctive and beautiful deep alto. It will shock you with deep textures not unlike a late season red wine and you'll never forget it once you've heard her. All My Days is a shockingly good debut as it displays song craft and maturity well beyond Gooden's age or experience. She is a consummate story teller and a talented composer. This is a must own disc, and I would say it's just the beginning for Corinne Gooden.

Rating: 4.5 Stars (Out of 5)

- Wildy's World Blogspot

Strong lyrics, tight arrangements and powerful, unforgettable songs make "All My Days", the debut CD by Corinne Gooden one of the best indie/folk/rock releases of 2008. These are songs that really sneak up on you--simple, yet effective and alluring melodies that serve to reinforce the powerful, bitter truths of the masterfully written lyrics. Every cut is moving and executed with finesse. I often speak of defining moments in contemporary music, and this CD has one - the electric guitar solo on "Come This Far" which drives the song home, and the keyboard solo at the end that emphasizes the dispirited heartache of pushing a loved one away. This is pure, wistful eloquence that is both guileless and mesmerizing.

Another great song is "17th Street", a moving piece written about a man who lived on the corner of 17th Street and 5th Avenue in New York City. Said Corinne, about this song, "I walked by him every day on my way to and from work, and although I never spoke to him, he became a regular fixture in my day. So sad, he literally lived on cardboard boxes on the corner, and in the cold winter months, he would wear plastic around his hands and feet. One day he wasn't there, and for about a week I wondered if he was going to come back. He did, for about another month, but then he was gone for good. It was an especially cold winter that year, and I figured that the shelter services found him dead, and had to take care of him. He really touched my heart, first of all because he was a survivor, but secondly because it really showed me how callous we as humans become to situations and people like that, how it just becomes a normal everyday thing. We stop noticing that there are people out there that need help, and there are people much worse off than you or me. The song just kind of came out as a reality check more than anything, and it serves as a reminder to me to stop and notice how good (and bad) life can really be, and to really love the people in my life, and love what life has given me............"

Though the strength of this release is Corinne's evocative vocals, the instrumentation and production are equally strong. Some of the songs are bluesy-folk balladry, some are country or country/pop hybrid - all are outstanding. "Goodbye" is an amazing song capable of crossing over into the pop or country genres. "You've Got Me" is an instantly memorable song with a country feel; catchy lyrics, stunning vocals and a great acoustic guitar/piano combination. The title song, "All My Days" is pure heartache. "17th Street" is a moving and reflective observation of people living on the fringes of society.

"All My Days" is an intriguing assortment of songs that are instantly engaging and unforgettable. This an intensely personal effort that includes several moving pieces that recall life, loss, hope and regret, and the bittersweet reminiscences of love and the reckoning that comes with standing at a crossroads. Better yet, the CD stands out thanks to a strong melodoic appeal owing to the strength of Corinne Gooden's emotional vocal delivery and first-rate songwriting.
POSTED BY MUSICIANS RIGHTS COALITION - Musicians Rights Coalition

Released in 2008, All My Days is perhaps the most heartfelt album I’ve reviewed this year. Corinne Gooden’s voice has a warm country twinge which simply arrested me on first listen. Her voice is intimate and makes you have to sit and listen. Corinne’s feelings are obviously completely entwined in her words and notes. It’s impossible to listen to All My Days without feeling along with her. Corinne has a rare gift for drawing you in and letting you feel her love, her happiness, her pain, her heartbreak, and her hope.

Corinne’s voice can be haunting, especially on track three, “All My Days.” Corinne sings a melody here that’s so innately familiar, yet original in its own right. Her voice is painted over a perfect tapestry of her interlocking acoustic guitar and what seems to be a keyboard, the latter of which begins and ends the song. The drums provide perfect accentuation to the notes and lyrics. The lyrics are perfect, the chorus saying: “All my days/a world which pushes down the pain/I cannot make this go away/all my nights/a dream that haunts my sleep again/I cannot seem to make you stay.” Simply beautiful. Make no mistake – “All My Days” is a hit.

But Corinne doesn’t stop here. All her following songs are great (as well as those preceding “All My Days”). “Come This Far,” rocks pretty hard. The bridge is very powerful and Corinne’s voice really shines here, offering a nice contrast to “All My Days.” “Come This Far” also lets her accompaniment shine; they really help Corinne to reach high in this album.

“17th Street” is a tragic yet beautiful song dealing with something many struggle with. The song is about how people pass a homeless man on the corner in their cars, completely ignoring him. Corinne isn’t accusatory - she admits she does the same, and that this is even normal. The tragedy lies just in the fact that it’s normal. This song takes this example to expose the numbness in the human heart, a numbness which makes us forget that we need each other.

Corinne is talented as a songwriter and has the ability to draw the listener in and make him or her feel. I would definitely like more people to know about Corinne Gooden, because she is simply amazing. She is the best female vocalist I’ve heard this year, hands down. She has crafted the kind of album where, after listening to it, you feel like you know her. - Independent Clauses