BURRILLVILLE – It’s been less than one week since Burrillville native and country music artist Charlie Marie released the first single from her debut album, Heard It Through The Red Wine.
And the song – a ballad about discovering a lover’s infidelity with some help from the lip-loosening juice – is already garnering attention on the national country music scene.
The single, released on Friday, Feb. 26, was dubbed one of Rolling Stone’s Country Music Picks of the Week for March 1.
With the artist’s debut full-length album, Ramble On, set for release in two months, it’s a promising start for the latest music from Burrillville’s home grown talent.
“Weepy steel guitar isn’t all that makes this cheating song scream ‘classic country,'” noted the Rolling Stone article published this week. “The title itself is right up there with clever country entries like ‘She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles)’ and ‘Sleepin’ Single in a Double Bed.'”
It’s an encouraging leap forward for Charlene Marie Cipollone, aka Charlie Marie, an artist inspired by the music of Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn who aims to write, “classic country music for the modern world.”
Cipollone began performing locally at the age of 16, and attended Belmont University in Nashville, releasing her first self-titled EP in 2015.
Her second five-song EP, released in 2019, made many on the scene take notice of the singer, and Charlie Marie’s knack for producing classic country from a seemingly unlikely home in Rhode Island
“She embraces her unique perspective, and uses it as an invaluable illustration of how the love of country music defies geographical borders, and can be harbored in the heart of anyone who understands how the music delivers so much more than simple entertainment,” noted one 2019 review on Savage Country Music.
Lamenting that in Nashville, “songs are all starting to sound the same,” another writer in Southern Fellow notes that, “Charlie Marie did the most country thing she could do. She returned to her roots and went home to Rhode Island. This move allowed her to center herself and made her music feel less like a product. ”
Rather than hide her less than traditional country roots, it seems Cipollone has made them part of her niche – as a new take on the classic genre.
“It’s a sound that bridges the gap between Nashville and her native Rhode Island — a blend of old-school traditions and fresh perspectives, fused together by a trailblazer who’s been writing songs since her teenage years,” notes the singer’s website.
On Heard It Through The Red Wine, she sings, “That bottle made an honest man of you,” lyrically, “peppering a would-be traditional drinking song with more twists than an Old Fashioned,” her bio notes. “It’s that rare skill — the ability to both honor and subvert the country tropes that made her a lifelong fan of her heroes — that gives Ramble On its sly strength.”
Rolling Stone points out that the song winks at, “Marvin Gaye’s unforgettable hit about loose lips while detailing the drunken truths of a lover.”
“In vino veritas, indeed,” the write-up concludes.
Ramble On is set for release on Friday, May 7 and fans can buy it on pre-sale at https://cmarie.fanlink.to/RO
