ay I introduce you to the next great country songwriter?

Her name is Jessi Alexander, she’s kind of a poet, and I’m afraid she will never be a recording star on her own. One can hope, but history is against her. Her closest living analogue is Matraca Berg, who is currently without a recording contract. Like Berg, Alexander’s songs are literate without being pretentious, her point of view is populist without being pandering, and her voice is serviceable without being showy; sadly, I fear that it would be better for her career if she were pretentious and showy and pandering. I wouldn’t be surprised if Alexander won several CMT Awards and a fistful of Grammys for her writing without ever actually having a huge hit.

But there are a bunch of songs here that could be, and should be, huge hits. “This World Is Crazy” is a soft folk-country song made up of lovely phrases about horrible things: “When the sirens whine and the shots ring out / And peace of mind just can’t be found / Across the miles, I’m by your side.” She did this one the other night on Leno, so maybe it’ll catch on and be huge—sadly, country music is in a whole only-one-woman-at-a-time mode these years, and I’m worried that this is going to get buried while Deana Carter and Lee Ann Womack fight it out for that spot. But “This World Is Crazy” is just as sublime and tasty as the singles by either of these veterans, and could really go places if it gets a chance.

Alexander’s problem is that she’s a songwriter first. “I’d Run Right Back to You” is just a flat-out great song, about falling in love with a bad-news guy (“You’re a forecast that always calls for rain / You’re a detour that leads me straight to pain”), and she sings it with quiet passion and true heart, but it’s almost too good, too perfectly pitched, to relate to, at least in this version. This might be more acceptable as a Sara Evans song, maybe, or for Patty Loveless. But it wouldn’t be better. (Wow, I just heard this in my head with Gary Allan singing it, and it’s got #1 written all over it.)

See, I really like Alexander’s voice. “Reasons to Run” is more whispered than sung, really, but it’s convincing and sexy, and would sound hot on the radio, although it might have to go to an AAA playlist to make it. “Can You Make It Feel Right” is pretty much just Tom Petty’s “Learning to Fly” crossed with Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” but she sells it with conversational sass. She’s not the best singer in the world, but she’s young and she’s still learning.

The best thing here is her slow country-blues number “Unfulfilled.” She goes from personal details about the protagonist’s difficult life (dishes, diapers, reruns) to the larger picture (sulfur in the water, unemployed husband) to the universal condition (modern American malaise) in five tense minutes. This basically sums up why country music kicks so much ass these days. And when the chorus kicks into gear, Alexander gets herself worked up at how shitty everything is for everybody, and starts to testify like Aretha Franklin—well, okay, not Aretha, but maybe like Gretchen Wilson or Martina McBride, although without the grit, yet, of either of them.

I want Jessi Alexander to be a star, and I hope to hell I’m wrong with my gloomy predictions. But if I'm right, we should get a couple-three great records out of her, and she'll become a millionaire and win lots of awards for her songs, and that ain't bad at all.