What a journey of the heart this record has been. I’ve experienced, since the release of my last studio album Strip, the loss of both a mate (Doc Cavalier, who’d been our producer) and a long-time guitarist and collaborator (Eric Fletcher). It’s been tough, and sitting down at the writing table wasn’t always easy. Rosanne Cash and I were talking, and she asked me if I’d written sad songs. It wasn’t until she asked me that I realized I hadn’t. Ultimately, this is an album about love and the courage to fall into it. The fact is, the loss just informs you; it opens emotional doors that couldn’t possibly have opened before, no matter how much you thought you knew about it. I wrote about love--the newness of it, the glory of it, the loss of it, the constancy of it, the sadness that can come from it, the wonder of it, the sweet bitterness of it, sometimes. It’s my favorite topic, and never have I felt it so deeply and been so deeply affected by it.

The songs came over a period of about 10 months, the last being “The Gone Of You,” co-written by Cliff Goodwin. It turned out to be, along with the title track (with wonderful guitar work by Big Al Anderson), the album’s signature. We’ve included it twice, in a full studio version and then in a genius demo track that Andy York, who produced the record and was its most stalwart contributor, fashioned from voodoo loops and dark guitar. I sang it one late-night-into-early morning, so we dubbed it “The Gone of You (After Hours).” Yet it’s “The Deep End,” with its theme of jumping off a cliff, that owns my heart.

If the writing of the songs had been a joy, the recording process proved to be a total kick, spearheaded by sessions with the core band: Cliff Goodwin (guitar), Larry Donahue (drums) and Michael Colbath (bass) of Rebel Montez joined by Andy York. Then from Andy’s home studio to Vic Steffens’ cool Connecticut-based Horizon Music Group to Levon Helm’s place in Woodstock to Station West in Nashville, Lily’s Terrace and New Calcutta in NYC, and Sounds Great in Boca Raton, the guests artists had tracks flying, on fire together.

Ian Hunter whipped off his sunglasses in the June heat at Andy’s and dug into “There Ain’t No Cure.” To my delight, he’d also written the lyrics to “The Deep End” on a yellow legal pad and offered to add his voice there, too. Marshall Crenshaw and I romped on one of my all-time favorite “lost” Motown classics, Marvin Gaye & Mary Wells’ “What’s The Matter With You Baby” over at Levon’s studio, the great man himself on drums, his shoulders famously hunched in that beautiful way of his. Dion and I conferred by phone and, with Cat Russell’s help, crafted our vocal tracks--he in Florida and I in Connecticut-- for “Cry Baby Cry,” a treasured southern soul gem out of my vinyl collection originally done by the unsung duo Van & Titus. Dion had loved the track as much as I did when I’d first sent it to him. The guitarists on this record are, truly, an “A-team --from Rebel Montez’s current (Cliff) and once (Eric, to whose memory the CD is dedicated, appearing with me in a radio air shot of Link Wray’s “Walkin’ Down The Street Called Love”--if ever a title fit the theme, this is it) -- to G.E. Smith, Big Al Anderson, Eric “Roscoe” Ambel, Marshall Crenshaw, and Andy York. I am so deeply grateful to all the musicians whose hearts and souls are stamped on these tracks. They honor me with their presence.

It’s been a long and winding road, and in many respects I felt this was a journey I truly had to make by myself. That I’ve had great artists support me along the way has been a dream, and a gift. As I say in the liner notes, “There are so many who have stepped up with grace and love to help me get through these past years, to rejoice with me, to hold me while I cried, and to lift me up.” I have, indeed, been lifted, and now I look forward to sharing these songs with everyone. Let’s jump into the deep end.

Strip - (HMG 1177) The Beehive Queen returned with a vengence in 2003 on TNA Records (re-released in 2009 on HMG) with a more swamped-up sound. The killer grooves are courtesy of the flash cats of Rebel Montez (Eric Fletcher-lead guitar; Michael Colbath - bass; Larry Donahue - drums. Strip was the swan-song legacy of Fletcher, "The Blond God," who would pass away in 2006.)

Also on board are special guests Shawn Pelton (Sheryl Crow/Saturday Night Live Band); Andy York (John Mellencamp/Ian Hunter); Brian Mitchell (Al Green/Irma Thomas), Amanda Just (The Rivergods) and gospel-tinged trio The Sin Sisters.

Ohlman’s songwriting kicked up a notch with tracks like the sexy bossa-nova title cut, swamp-pop classic “The Storm,” “Empty,” a bare-bones tale of despair spun inside a gorgeous guitar-laden track, and “Another Country,” a saga of terrifying love wrapped around a pile-driving groove.

Included too are her usual cast of carefully chosen covers: “I Am Bound For The Promised Land,” straight from the Bristol sessions of 1927; “Daddy Rollin’ (In Your Arms)” a B-side originally recorded by Dion, that Prince of the Bronx himself; “Highway 61,” the blues classic rewritten with lyrics dedicated to Ohlman’s late friend Cub Koda; and a slice of savage Brit Invasion pop “I Can Only Give You Everything,” a steamy duet she shares with Joe Hurley of NYC’s Irish punksters Rogues’ March.

Strip is marked by Ohlman’s attention to arrangement and lyrics underscored by Fletcher, Donahue, and Colbath’s passionate, tight musicianship. The overall feeling of barely contained, overwhelming emotion pegs this as their best recorded work so far.

Radio Queen - (HMG 1178) This 1997 live outing, originally released on J-Bird Records, was captured during a raging blizzard and in front of an equally raging audience. Here’s where you’ll find the only recorded version of “Not Fade Away,” a staple of any Rebel Montez show, and early live versions of “Turn” and “When The Summer Goes,” later to appear on Wicked Time.

Originally released in 1995 on Deluge Records, Christine’s first recorded outing with Rebel Montez laid down the Beehive gauntlet with classics like “A Shot Of You,” “Then God Created Woman,” “Sugar Melts,” and “The Seventh Sons.” The title track got some major movie action in 2008’s “Sex & Lies In Sin City” starring Matthew Modine and Mina Suvari.