Buddy and Julie Miller have been making records separately for over 20 years. During that time, however, despite playing on one another's recordings, this is only the second one they've made collaboratively. Written in Chalk is steeped in American music tradition. Whether it's country, blues, boozy swing, or rock, this husband-and-wife duo lays it all down with authenticity, great humor, and honest emotion. They recorded the set at their home studio in Nashville, with help from old friends like Brady Blade, Matt Rollings, Chris Donohue, John Deaderick, Jay Bellerose, Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, and the McCrary Sisters, as well as some new ones, including Larry Campbell and Robert Plant. Julie wrote eight of these dozen songs. They are among the most sophisticated and emotionally resonant of her career -- and that's saying plenty. The album opener is the devastatingly beautiful reminiscence Ellis County, with Buddy's lead vocal looking back to "...when all we could afford was laughter/And two mules instead of a tractor...where there was nothing left to throw out/When there was a light that wouldn't go out...." With Campbell's fiddle adding the high lonesome of Appalachia in the track, one can imagine Levon Helm singing this song, but it's so much more effective with Buddy and Julie. Julie Miller also writes about heartbreak in a singular way. She avoids clichés and, when singing her own songs, doesn't need to over-emote because the truth of them lies in her lyrics and soft expression. Instead, she inhabits her lyrics fully, and one can feel the weight in them as they come up from the depths of the pierced heart of her protagonists and resonate in the mournful grain of her voice.

1		Ellis County
2		Gasoline And Matches
3		Don't Say Goodbye
4		What You Gonna Do Leroy
5		Long Time
6		One Part, Two Part
7		Chalk
8		Everytime We Say Goodbye
9		Hush, Sorrow
10		Memphis Jane
11		June
12		The Selfishness In Man