''Shooting Straight in the Dark'' is the third studio album by American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

artist Mary Chapin Carpenter. It was a #11 Country Album on the

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

Country Albums chart. Four of its tracks became Billboard

Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sal ...

hits: "You Win Again" at #16, "Right Now" at #15, "Down at the Twist and Shout" at #2, and "Going Out Tonight" at #14. Members of the Cajun band BeauSoleil provide guest instrumentation on "Down at the Twist and Shout". Shawn Colvin provided backing vocals on three of the album's songs.

Track listing

All songs written by Mary Chapin Carpenter; except where indicated #" Going Out Tonight" (Carpenter,

John Jennings John Jennings may refer to: Politicians * John Jenyns (1660–1717), MP * John Jennings (Burton MP) (1903–1990), British Conservative Party politician * John Jennings (American politician) (1880–1956), U.S. Representative from Tennessee, 1939 ...

) - 3:16 #" Right Now" ( Al Lewis, Sylvester Bradford) - 2:36 #"The More Things Change" - 3:56 #"When She's Gone" - 5:05 #"Middle Ground" - 3:51 #"Can't Take Love for Granted" - 4:01 #" Down at the Twist and Shout" - 3:21 #"Halley Came to Jackson" - 3:10 #"What You Didn't Say" - 4:36 #" You Win Again" - 3:59 #"The Moon and St. Christopher" - 4:21 #*duet with Shawn Colvin

Personnel

Credits from album liner notes. *Peter Bonta – acoustic guitar on "Down at the Twist and Shout", keyboards on "Can't Take Love for Granted", piano on "Halley Came to Jackson" *Jimmy Breaux – Acadian

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

and Cajun yells on "Down at the Twist and Shout" * Mary Chapin Carpenter – lead and backing vocals, acoustic guitar, producer *Jon Carroll – piano on "Right Now", backing vocals on "The More Things Change" * Shawn Colvin – backing vocals on "Middle Ground", duet vocals on "The Moon and St. Christopher" *Mike Cotter – backing vocals * Don Dixon – bass guitar on "Right Now", backing vocals on "Right Now" *

Michael Doucet Michael Louis Doucet (born February 14, 1951) is an American singer-songwriter and musician best known as the founder of the Cajun band BeauSoleil. Early life Doucet was born in Scott, Louisiana, to a Cajun family. Family parties in the 1950s ...

– fiddle on "Down at the Twist and Shout", Cajun yells on "Down at the Twist and Shout" *

– electric and acoustic guitars, bass guitar,

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

, backing vocals, Cajun yells, producer * Marti Jones – backing vocals on "Right Now" and "Middle Ground" *Robbie Magruder – drums *John McCutcheon –

hammer dulcimer The hammered dulcimer (also called the hammer dulcimer) is a percussion-stringed instrument which consists of strings typically stretched over a trapezoidal resonant sound board. The hammered dulcimer is set before the musician, who in more trad ...

on "Halley Came to Jackson" * Mark O'Connor – fiddle on "Halley Came to Jackson" *Dave Palamar – drums on "Right Now" * Herb Pedersen – backing vocals on "Halley Came to Jackson" *Rico Petruccelli – bass guitar *

Matt Rollings Matt Rollings is a Grammy Award-winning American composer, keyboard player and record producer. Known mainly for playing in Lyle Lovett's Large Band, Rollings has worked with many artists, not all country. Matt won the 'Best Traditional Pop Voca ...

– piano *Vince Santoro – drums on "Middle Ground" *Billy Ware – percussion on "Down at the Twist and Shout", Cajun yells on "Down at the Twist and Shout"

Chart performance

References

{{Authority control Mary Chapin Carpenter albums Columbia Records albums 1990 albums