Album Review: Robby Hecht & Caroline Spence – ‘Two People’

Robby Hecht & Caroline Spence

Two People

* * * * *

Two People is the debut duo album of Nashville born singer/songwriters Robby Hecht & Caroline Spence. The pair met at the Rocky Mountain Folk Festival in 2013 and instantaneously hit it off musically. After two singles garnered eight million streams on Spotify, the duo decided to hunker down and record a full-length album.

While Two People is a duo album, Hecht & Spence are solo artists in their own right. If Robby’s name sounds familiar, it might be because I reviewed his solo record back in 2014, which I had almost forgotten about until Two People hit my radar screen last month courtesy of Juli Thanki from The Tennessean.

The album plays like an independent film centered around a charming and human love story worth rooting for and getting behind. The album traces that story through all of its facets, giving the listener eight perfect snapshots, each one capturing another moment in time.

Our story begins on “The Real Thing,” a warm ballad in which our couple meets at a crowded party. He knows she’s with someone else, a guy who wants nothing more than a fling. Our guy offers this girl an alternative — “We can ditch this crowd, we can ditch this scene, come on, take a ride with me.” He has money, and a car, but most importantly, he can offer her what her current guy cannot — a healthy relationship.

Spence takes the lead on “Trying,” in which our girl promises she’s doing everything she can to give our guy her heart. She’s having trouble giving in, letting go and trusting what’s right in front of her. “All On The Table” finds our couple laying everything bare in order to see if their relationship can go the distance. It’s Spence who takes the lead once again, using her sweet soprano to draw the listener in with her palpable venerability. This is the rare song that reenergizes my love for music, giving me the realization that real country music still exists in the world if you know where to look.

Hecht takes the lead on the romantic “Holding You,” in which our guy has found something to get him through the mundane day-to-day of life — her awaiting arms each night. When that proves not to be nearly enough he needs to spend “A Night Together” with her. He wants to go out but doesn’t care where — a country fair with a Ferris Wheel, a romantic dinner with an expensive bottle of wine that keeps them occupied until closing time — he doesn’t care as long as he can show her off and take her back home with him.

A time jump reveals the relationship began to crack and eventually fell apart. Spence leads the way on “I’ll Keep You,” a surprisingly sweet tale that finds her sorting through and boxing up the couple’s memories from their time together. It ends with a sign on the corner, pointing to their house, indicating a yard sale.

“Over You” finds Hecht embodying the guy’s gut-wrenching ache at the relationship meeting its end and finds him trying to convince himself he’s over her, as he continues to question everything he thought was right while they were together.

The album ends with an interesting thought. What if the couple had never been destined to meet in the first place? What if their paths had almost crossed but at the last second he exited the train, or he gave his seat to someone else just before she sat down? Those are the questions and thoughts raised by “Parallel Lines,” which was one of the two early singles that convinced the duo to make an album together.

I don’t want to suggest Two People is by any means autobiographical even though Hecht and Spence did write all the songs together. They are a magical pairing, bringing these songs to life with an effortlessness that cannot be fabricated. Spence is an otherworldly vocalist, with a similar tone to Ashley Monroe, while Hecht is a captivating conversationalist.

Two People is an independent release that likely won’t get the press coverage it deserves, especially in the crowed Americana/folk world it finds itself in. It may be a quieter album, but it’s powerful in its own unique way. I highly recommend everyone check it out.

Album Review: Robby Hecht: “Robbie Hecht”

Robbie Hecht

Robbie Hecht

* * * 1/2 

For his first collection since 2011’s Last of the Long Days, singer/songwriter Robbie Hecht turned to producer Lex Price to help him achieve the lush sound he desired. The resulting eponymous album is a quiet collection of songs that pack a significant punch.

Hecht, who hails from Knoxville, TN, knew music was his calling around age 18 and he spent the next decade of his life turning it into his career through travels in Europe and a stint in San Francisco before making his way back to Music City.

After being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Hecht was truly able to find himself and gain the confidence he needed to begin a solo career in earnest, with his new album marking the latest step in his journey.

Robbie Hecht isn’t an album to be taken lightly, treated as background music while you enjoy a shindig or drive in your car. The quiet simplicity draws you in, commanding your attention in the way only the most finely crafted albums can.

Excellent lead single “New York City” is one of those songs, tracing the psychedelic hold the Big Apple has on those who’ve walked it’s streets and ridden it’s subways. Through various pleas, Hecht begs the city to give him the hope he can only find within himself. Similarly themed “I Don’t Believe It” finds a man going through a series of repeating lines in an effort to keep from facing the bitter truth and continue a life in denial.

Nashville writer Amy Speace co-wrote “The Sea & The Shore” with Hecht and the results are a quietly haunting tune about impossible love. The sparse production – just soft acoustic guitar with ribbons of light piano – works wonderfully to compliment Hecht’s delicate yet commanding vocal. “Cars and Bars” traverses nearly identical ground sonically, while also featuring a nicely engaging story about an encounter with a girl that wasn’t destined to be anything more than a one-time meeting. Hecht’s tender vocal conveys a hint of sadness among his recollection of that day.

“Feeling It Now” is slightly faster in tempo with jazzy elements incorporated into the production track. It’s an excellent number about contentment that perfectly conveys one of the hardest emotions to convey properly in a song. “The Light Is Gone” falls on the opposite end of the spectrum and concerns the end of a relationship as indicated through his lovers’ eyes, which painfully illustrate the lack of love she currently feels for him.

One of the album’s standout tracks is “Papa’s Down The Road Dead,” a rockilin’ reflection on the passage of time – someone close to you may’ve died, but life goes on without exception. My other favorite track on Robbie Hecht is “Soon I Was Sleeping,” the only number on the record to contain steel guitar in the backing track. It’s a pure country number about a woman who’s moved on from her ex, with the gorgeously painful flourishes of steel wonderfully extenuating Hecht’s ache.

I freely admit that when I first heard Robbie Hecht I was overcome by the lushness of it, leaving the arrangements feeling somewhat too sleepy for my tastes. But the quietness actually works in his favor, allowing his delicate voice to shine in a way that big production values would’ve squashed. Hecht is an incredibly emotional singer, albeit in a quiet way, and this album is the perfect showcase for his abilities. He may be outside what is traditionally considered country music (and not in a 2014 Nashville sense), but his album works nonetheless. He isn’t the noisiest guy around, but as a singer/songwriter he shouldn’t be ignored.