Album Results
Album Reviews
Before Shelby Lynne reinvented herself at the end of the 1990s and began recording for Mercury, she made a number of fine recordings that were unfortunately lost in the heap of "new traditionalist" and female superstar recordings that were popping out of Nash Vegas like zits. This 1990 effort, produced by the great Bob Montgomery, is a case in point. Not only does this hold up to her best work, it's at the very least on a par with Kathy Mattea, Trisha Yearwood, Martina McBride, etc. It just isn't a strictly country outing, but it's a truly fine pop-country record. Interestingly, it also has the range of her later records. While there are songs here from the then-current crop of Nash Vegas song churners, like the opener, "I'll Lie Myself to Sleep," there are also cuts like the gorgeous gentle Western swing of "Don't Mind if I Do," by the legendary Skip Ewing. The tune borrows as much from Billie Holiday's "Ain't Nobody's Business" as it does from early Bonnie Raitt and Maria Muldaur. And then there's a burning, hard-rocking cover of Charlie Rich's early hit "Lonely Weekends." It's more Dixie-fried than Rich's version, but it comes across as a thoroughly contemporary country-rock song with ringing guitars à la the Doobie Brothers' Toulouse Street, an Elvis-styled delivery, and a piano shuffle in the background that keeps the lyric from sinking under the weight of a cooking band. Wayne Carson's "Dog Day Afternoon" sounds like a latter-day Rich number, or one Tom Waits wrote for Crystal Gayle for the One from the Heart soundtrack; it's all jazzy, warm, and sensual. If there were any doubts about Lynne's country pedigree, it vanishes when her radical working of "I Walk the Line" comes through the speakers. Bluesy, shuffling, and the slightest bit funky, her sense of Cash's melody remains untouched. The set ends with another Western swing-influenced nugget, but this one comes from Duke Ellington, "Don't Get Around Much Anymore," before it breaks out into a full-blown Patsy Cline country-jazz tune. She saved the best moment for last here, and it is so original in its swinging elegance that listeners can only wonder if she might have taken the Diana Krall route, in that she not only has the pipes and the chops, but the feel for this material. Tough All Over is wonderful from start to finish. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
Track Listing
more| Featured Review | |
|
If I Were A Boy Beyonce |
| As far as pop stars go, Beyoncé can be granted supernova status; enjoying a never ending period of constant expansion. Maybe that's why she now feels obliged to introduce an alter ego and name her imminent double CD "I am Sasha Fierce" after it. The album is supposed to show two opposite artistic sides: with Beyoncé focusing on the mellower, ballad-singing, aspect of her personality and Sasha showing the, eerm, fiercer, sophisticated dancey glamour. "If I Were A Boy" belongs to the old-fashioned former and, on paper, it sounded like a female answer to Prince's gender bender classic "If I Was Your Girlfriend." But despite the promising premise, its rather dull lyrics,never far away from cliché land, are nothing like the purple genius' spicy machinations. Drinking bear, chasing girls and trying to understand how a woman feels to become a better man it's all the Destiny's Child would like to do if she was indeed a boy. Ballads have never been Beyoncé's forte, so it doesn't take much thought to guess which side we're likely to prefer. Bring on Sasha Fierce!! | |
 more
|
|
