A bullish Bullens Cindy's pumped about her new album and a big show this weekend BY SAM PFEIFLE
	Baystock Cindy Bullens + Delbert McClinton + James McMurtry | Maine State Pier, Portland | Sunday, Aug 13, 5 pm | $30 | www.baystockmusicfest.com

I thought my introduction to Cindy Bullens came in 2000, when the local roots rocker was making the rounds with Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth, an album inspired by the death from Hodgkin’s Disease of her daughter Jessie. Being the emotional coward that I am — I get teary-eyed just thinking about particularly good stuff; best to avoid a heartbreaking story like Bullens’s — I pretty much let the national press handle our local album, figuring I didn’t have much to add to the story. I hardly noticed the record included guest turns from the likes of Lucinda Williams and Bonnie Raitt.

Turns out, of course, that I’d spent much of my teen years listening to Bullens, having the Grease soundtrack forced upon me by a girlfriend’s little sister and a crew of her friends who enjoyed filming themselves performing the songs. That’s right, Bullens has three tracks on the soundtrack, including "Freddy My Love," which is on more than a few wedding-DJ playlists, I’ll tell ya.

I came upon this after listening to the review copy of Bullens’s new record, Dream #29, enjoying it quite a bit, and noticing not only a duet with Delbert McClinton, but piano from (Sir) Elton John, and even a guest vocal from Tim freakin’ Wakefield. (Actually, as I told Bullens over the phone, I first saw that liner note and thought, "Huh, there’s a singer named Tim Wakefield — must be a country star I’ve never heard of.")

Who the hell is this chick? I found myself wondering. She’s from Portland?

Well, she splits her time between Nashville and Portland, she tells me over the phone from Tennessee. "I still consider Maine my home, but I’ve got a house outside of Nashville, too. It’s easier to base out of here when I’m going on the road, and I was spending so much time here I thought I’d better invest in something."

While in Nashville, she hooked up with producer Ray Kennedy for this new album, and she says she’s very happy with the results. "Other than Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth, which is my legacy, I think Dream #29 is my best record ever," she says. "[2001’s] Neverland followed up Between Heaven and Earth and that was a really difficult transition for me. And I think Dream is really free and clear of everything but what I do best. I think it’s fun, boisterous — and poignant when it is. I think it’s got all the elements of who I am and what I write about. And I think Ray is the glue."

She’s got a great band on the disc, too. With locals Ginger Cote on drums and Justin Maxwell doing some bass, plus George Marinelli, who plays guitar with Emmylou Harris, and Garry Tallent of the E Street Band. Kennedy especially captured a wonderful warm guitar tone to pair with Bullens’s earthy and lower-register vocals. You notice it right away on Dream’s opener, "Oriental Silk," which sports a "Heart of Gold" rhythm line, and sounds more than a little like the last Coming Grass record, thanks to Cote’s distinctive rhythm (best time-keeper in Portland, if I haven’t said that before).

A distorted harmonica works well, too, and the chorus — "Your words slide over me like oriental silk/ And then your fingers do the same/ I stand there spellbound as you’re breaking down my will/ Feel my resistance giving way" — is a sexy confirmation that Bullens is pretty much done feeling sorry for herself.

"I feel ready to take my place among my peers," Bullens says, "for no other reason than my music, if you know what I mean."

"This Ain’t Love," which local fans should recognize from the very first Greetings compilation, ought to draw some notice. It’s here that Bullens does a great trade-off of verses with McClinton, and fires the song off with a grunt like she’s going to kick your ass. The song has bouncy honky-tonk swing, and features a cool mid-song upward chord progression that shows some inventive songwriting. And it almost didn’t make it on the record.

"It originally appeared on an EP that I just pressed up myself, that wasn’t released," Bullens says. "[Ginger] really pressed me to record it for this record. I said, ‘No I don’t want to record any old songs.’ But then we did it, and it came out so great . . . and Ray had just mixed Delbert’s new record." Kennedy gave the song to McClinton, he listened, "he said yes, and we did a duet. I just have my plain old voice, but he’s just unbelievable. So you can thank Ginger Cote for that one. It’s much looser, much funkier; it’s just like Louisiana, just a funky, funky thing."

So now Bullens is bringing McClinton, his 12-piece band, and James McMurtry to Baystock, a concert on the Maine State Pier that’s a fundraiser for Bullens’s Jessie Fund, combating childhood cancer. It’s the least a well-connected big-time rocker can do for her hometown.

"I love to gig in Portland," she says. "It’s just because of my schedule that I don’t do it more often. Literally for the past year I’ve been down here recording . . . So it’s been real hard to keep in touch. I love Maine, I consider it my home, I’m interested in what’s going on musically, and I try to keep in touch with local friends. I love being thought of as a local musician even though I’m almost never there."

Hey, we love having someone from Grease as a local musician.

Sam Pfeifle can be reached at sam@phx.com