Brandy Clark: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

June 20, 2016 by JACOB GANZ There s no explicit narrative threading together Brandy Clark s second album, Big Day In A Small Town. Instead, the 11 interconnected songs map a small collection of streets, landmarks, loves, betrayals and heartbreaks that cohere into a place as particular and as universal as Winesburg or Grover s Corners. Lowkey and wry, Clark is a meticulous songwriter who made hits for Reba McEntire, Miranda Lambert, LeAnn Rimes and Kacey Musgraves before she put her own name on an album. (It s hard to believe that nobody wrote the instantclassic line, If you want the girl next door, then go next door, before she did. ) But when Clark steps in front of a mic and turns on the charm, her humor pulls the audience right into every single joke watch for the knowing smile she shoots guitarist Miles Aubrey just before she drops a bomb at the end of the first chorus of In anyone else s hands, that song might have been a bitter revenge fantasy, but Clark s gently swooping verses and