'Wild as a Wildcat' by Julie Durocher
Predating Tanya Tucker and LeAnn Rimes, 14-year-old Wisconsinite Julie Durocher was summoning adult misery and trouble. The six mid-‘60s tracks collected on Wild As A Wildcat finds Durocher mining Johnny Cash’s rockabilly-informed thump and Buck Owens’ Bakersfield snap on a John D. Loudermilk number where she nearly faces the hangman. Elsewhere, she shifts into the sort of honkytonk misery on which Kitty Wells built a career.
Durocher sells it all credibly, even if she may have had her fake ID by the bartender or package store clerk for the bottle that let her down. Durocher arguably gets a bit precious when she reverts to spoken word mode during the bridge of one number, amplifying the drama in her delivery to the point of amusing exaggeration. Durocher went on to record and pen songs with varying degrees of national success under a variety of names into the ‘70s and ‘80s; but Wildcat’s snapshot of a young woman playing musical dress-up with grown-up emotions and scenarios make for a fascinating country curio.
