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List Price: $15.99 | | Label: Yep Roc
Salesrank: 102637
Released: March 4, 2008 |
| Our Price: $8.00 |
| Used Price: $6.17 |
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| Media: Audio CD |
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Stronger Track Listing:
1. Bitter End
2. Why Be Blue
3. To Change Your Heart
4. Bring Love
5. I'm So Cool
6. Spider Lace
7. On to You
8. Judgement Day
9. Break My Little Heart in Two
10. It Takes One to Know Me
11. Light of Your Love
12. Stronger
Editorial Review:
As part of country music royalty (the daughter of June Carter Cash and Carl Smith and step daughter to Johnny Cash) Carlene Carter has seen both the ups and downs of the music business and life. She's lived as the daughter of a legend and had her family chronicled in Hollywood films (Walk the Line). She's seen the dark side of fame and struggled with addiction, all the while holding onto the grace and class emboldened deep family roots. Inspired by her life experiences, 'Stronger' is a raw but touching recollection of her life of the past few years. Years that included the wrenching sorrow of the sudden death of her stepfather, mother, sister and ex-lover. Also in that same year she experienced the euphoria of meeting and falling in love with the cowboy of her dreams. On her latest work 'Stronger,' family roots have intertwined with her musical roots, seeing Carlene return to Tennessee to record and prompting her to work closely with brother John Carter Cash. Her recent emotional peaks and valleys have also inspired Carlene to write the bulk of the material on Stronger, making for her most honest, real and moving work to date.
Stronger Reviews:
a CD that should have, could have been a lot better 
2009-07-10 - Carlene Carter sings better than ever and there are some very well written songs on Stronger. That's the good news. The bad news is the production. Although her producer, John McFee, is a terrific musician, he has apparently never met an effects processor he didn't like... too much. Roots records, even Carlene's most commercially successful ones, are wonderfully big on jangle and twang. There little of that here that has survived being beaten into submission by too much compression and chorusing. Even the blue grass numbers feel like cheesy synth parts are more likely to pipe in at any moment than an unaltered guitar line. If you are a fan of "less is more" production in roots music, you will be very disappointed in this over produced country pop that is more akin to the swill that passes for country music on FM radio than the quality Carlene Carter is known and loved for. A+ for the vocals, B+ for the song writing and instrumental performances, and a D for what i am sure was well intentioned execution that went sadly wrong.
Stunning! 
2009-02-15 - I don't know why this album didn't receive more coverage but it's brilliant and heartreaking. She looks so much like Mother Maybelle Carter and sounds somewhat like her mother June but she's all Carlene.
This album will break your heart with The Bitter End and, especially, Stronger. I haven't heard such a heartwrenching song since Alison Moorer's tribute to her mother in "Is Heaven Good Enough for You" or to both her mother and father (a murder-suicide) in "Cold, Cold Earth."
Her song about Howie Epstein, "Judgment Day" is, well, tremendously sad.
With all her sorrows, Carlene Carter has managed to rise about them and produce an album of stunning beauty amidst such sadness.
A treasure that should be more widely known.
Love the CD - quick delivery!
2008-09-25 - This CD arrived very quickly. It was in perfect condition and I have been playing it to death!
Strongs are stronger
2008-07-18 - I gave this CD as a gift to a woman who's married name is Strong. She recently lost her beloved father, unexpectedly. I thought that shared grief would sooth her soul. She hasn't mentioned the gift. But as the giver it gave me great comfort.
musical dreck 
2008-05-30 - Rarely has a product so disappointed me as the latest Carlene Carter CD. It's not her singing...of what i can hear of it she sounds as good as ever, and I am a long-time fan. I just can't hear her enough. In fact, I can't hear any of 'what I think I'm supposed to hear' enough. I find it hard to believe a CD this poorly mixed can be sold to the public. Almost every instrument is EQ'd to compete in the same sonic area. The vocals do not stand out. Solos do not stand out. It's a muddy muddy mess. So much so I am selling the disc within hours of getting it. Buyer beware!
