Album Review: Collin Raye – ‘All I Can Be’

Collin Raye made his solo debut in 1991 on Epic Records. His first album for the label was produced by Jerry Fuller and John Hobbs, and their sympathetic work grounded Collin’s silvery tenor in neotraditional country backings slathered in fiddle as sweet as his voice. Collin keeps the vocals understated and subtle. The team also found some excellent songs well suited to Collin’s voice, and the result was delightful.

The enchanting title track, ‘All I Can Be (Is A Sweet Memory)’ is a sweetly sung older Harlan Howard tune (once recorded by Conway Twitty) whose married protagonist parts from his younger lover for her own good. As Colin’s debut single, it was a modest start for him, just creeping into the top 30, but it is an extremely good song, with Vince Gill providing a close harmony vocal.

However, the followup ‘Love, Me’ was a career song for the newcomer, rocketing to the top of the charts and helping the album to platinum status. It is still probably Collin’s best remembered song. Written by Skip Ewing and Max T Barnes, it is a sweet story of the lifelong (and beyond) love of the protagonist’s grandparents. It escapes schmaltz thanks to Collin’s beautiful and palpably sincere vocal and the tastefully understated arrangement.

The third and last single, Every Second’ is a sunny mid-tempo love song with a traditional feel, and peaked at #2.

My personal favorite track is the plaintive lost-love ballad ‘It Could’ve Been So Good’, which Chris Waters wrote with Lonnie Wilson. Collin reflects on the opportunity he and his ex lost of potential lifelong happiness.

Almost as good, the wistful ballad ‘Faithful Old Flame’, penned by Lonnie Wilson and Brent Mason, has a lovely melody and allows Raye’s voice to soar as he dwells on an old love whose memory can’t be shaken off.

The charming ‘Scuse Moi My Heart’ scatters in some random French phrases as country boy Collin tries to woo a sophisticated country club lady in New Orleans. It’s one of the most engaging songs of its kind.

‘Sadly Ever After’ written by Mark Collie and Bruce Burch, uses the fairy tale metaphor for a failed relationship; there is a surprisingly upbeat feel thanks to the pacy tempo and full-blooded vocal. There is a rare co-writing credit for Collin with ‘Blue Magic’, written with his producers. This is an attractive if unexceptional mid-tempo love song with some lovely Rob Hajacos fiddle.

Collin’s strength is as a balad singer, but he takes it uptempo with ‘Any Old Stretch Of Blacktop’, expressing the joy of coming home to a loved one. The album also closes with the bright up-tempo warning to a neglectful husband, ‘If I Were You (And She Was Mine)’.

Everything about this album is a delight. Copies can be found cheaply, and this is an essential purchase for fans of 90s country.

Grade: A

Album Review: Dan Seals – ‘Rebel Heart’

Rebel Heart was not Dan Seals’ first solo album but it was his first to enjoy any level of commercial success. His two prior solo albums for Atlantic Records had produced five non-charting singles (actually two of them did reach the lower rungs of the pop charts), but the tide began to change when he made the move to Liberty Records in 1983. Like its two predecessors, Rebel Heart was produced by Kyle Lehning. Dan wrote or co-wrote seven of the album’s ten songs, including the first single “Everybody’s Dream Girl”, which became his first Top 20 country hit, peaking at #18.

For the most part, the songs on Rebel Heart are not that different from the music Seals had released as a pop artist; it would not be inaccurate to describe much of it as adult contemporary or soft rock with a dose of steel guitar, which is typical of the era. In fact, the production is quite restrained by 1983 standards, though with its synthesizers, drum machines and reverb it often sounds dated to modern ears. That is not to say, though, that it is not enjoyable. “After You” reminds me a lot of the music that Vince Gill was making at the time. The Paul Battle/Bucky Jones/Chris Waters tune was released as the album’s second single. It peaked at a disappointing #28, and the next single “You Really Go For The Heart” performed even worse, stalling at #37.

Just when it appeared that the project would be another commercial disappointment, Liberty released a fourth single — an unusual move in those days, particularly since none of the three previous releases had made a big impact at radio. But that all changed with the self-penned “God Must Be a Cowboy”, which jump-started Dan’s country career and landed him inside the Top 10 on Billboard’s country singles chart for the first time. A simple ode to the cowboy’s way of life, it is one of the few songs on the album with no pop overtones. It’s the best song on the album, and in fact, one of the best of Seals’ career. It was the breakthrough hit he had been waiting for; it was the first in a series of Top 10 singles that continued until 1990.

“On A Night Like This” is my second favorite song in the collection that seems like it would have been a better choice for a single release than some of the cuts that were actually sent to radio. “The Banker” is a very good but non-commercial ballad about a down-on-his-luck farmer whose property is about to enter foreclosure when he suddenly strikes oil. Dan wrote both of these songs as well as two rather bland numbers — “Up On A Hill” and “Candle In The Rain” — that sound like they might have been been written back during his England Dan and John Ford Coley days. “Down the Hall” is a decent pop-country number written by Dan’s cousin Troy Seals with Mike Reid. The song also appeared on The Oak Ridge Boys’ American Made album, which was also released in 1983.

Rebel Heart is a pleasant, though not essential, listen. It is currently only available as digital download , unless you’re willing to shell out nearly $200 for an imported CD copy. However, it is scheduled to be re-released in October on a 2-for-1 CD along with Dan’s 1988 album Rage On, and this appears to be the most economical way to purchase it.

Grade: B

Album Review: Tim McGraw – ‘All I Want’

Once Tim had made his commercial breakthrough, he was able to be a little more adventurous with his third album in 1995. This marks the point at which one can call Tim McGraw an artist rather than just a singer. The song quality was good, but the production (orchstrated as before by James Stroud and Byron Gallimore) lacks subtlety and leans a little too heavily to electric guitars front and center. Although sales were less than for its predecessor, Tim had found a firm place on country radio, as evidenced by five top 5 singles, two of them #1s.

Lead single, the silly but somehow irresistibly catchy ditty ‘I Like It, I Love It’ (complete with a nod to the Big Bopper), was Tim’s third #1. It also had some pop airplay. The singalong nature of the song for once makes crowd noise acceptable. This song should probably fall in the guilty pleasure category, but I don’t even feel guilty about it.

The rather good emotional string-laden ballad ‘Can’t Be Really Gone’, written by Gary Burr, fell just short, peaking at #2. Tim is not one of the best vocalists around, but this is one of his better efforts, with a real emotional commitment to this song about a man in denial about the permanence of his wife’s leaving. Title track ‘All I Want Is A Life’ is an up-tempo rocker without much melody and with too-loud and now dated sounding production, but a relatable lyric about struggling with poverty and aspirations for something more. It was the least successful of the album’s singles, but still peaked at #5.

Also a bit heavily produced but less obtrusively so, ‘She Never Lets It Go To Her Heart’ was another chart-topper, written by the hitmaking team of Tom Shapiro and Chris Waters. The mid-tempo ‘Maybe We Should Just Sleep On It’ (written by Jerry Laseter and Kerry Kurt Phillips) also did well, peaking at #4. These two are okay but not outstanding, and there was better material on the album, such as the relatively understated ballad ‘The Great Divide’, written by Brett Beavers. This is a very good depiction of a couple trapped in a tired marriage, who would rather pay attention to their respective book and TV show than one another. There is still hope their love can be rekindled.

‘I Didn’t Ask And She Didn’t Say’ is a nicely observed song, written by Reese Wilson, Van Stephenson and Tony Martin. Flight delays lead to an awkward encounter with a long-past ex, where the real questions remain unanswered. Tim’s voice has an urgency in it betraying the protagonist’s suppressed passion as he recalls past happiness, before they part with everything unresolved:

We said our goodbyes
Swore we’d stay in touch
Then we went our separate ways
Knowing no one ever does

‘When She Wakes Up (And Finds Me Gone)’ is another mature song with complex emotions which is well sung by Tim, but would have worked better for me with more stripped down production. The extended electric guitar solo at the end is excessive and adds nothing worthwhile. ‘Don’t Mention Memphis’ is another good song about a breakup, written by Bill LaBounty and Rand Bishop, but the rhythm is abit jerky and the track is over-produced. The impassioned ‘You Got The Wrong Man’ is also quite entertaining if rather processed sounding, as Tim tries to persuade a woman burnt by love before that he isn’t like the man who broke her heart.

Then there are a couple of real missteps. ‘Renegade’ is a boring rocker with Tim unconvincing as a rebel. ‘That’s Just Me’ is a southern/country boy pride number written by Deryl Dodd which sounds musically a little like a slightly slower ‘Indian Outlaw’. Dodd recorded it himself a couple of years later when making his Columbia Records debut.

Overall, the material selected here was a major advance for Tim McGraw, but the production choices are less palatable. Tim had found his musical direction, and if it was a long way from the traditionalism of his first album, it held a lot of appeal for country radio and cemented his fanbase. Triple platinum sales meant this was not quite as successful as its predecessor, but it is a better, more mature work. Better still, from Tim’s point of view, while topuring in support of the album, he fell in love with opening act Faith Hill, and by the time his next album came out he would be a husband and father.

Used copies are available very cheaply.

Grade: B+

Album Review: Terri Clark – ‘How I Feel’

Terri Clark’s third album, released in May 1998, found the singer at the apex of her commericial success, but also at the peak of her ability to balance commercial considerations with showcasing her talents as a writer and interpreting the traditions of country music. Working exclusively with producer Keith Stegall this time out, Terri wrote or co-wrote half of the 12 songs here.  How I Feel continued her run of platinum-selling albums, and was her second top 10 on the Country Albums chart.

The lead single ‘Now That I Found You’, a sweet-sounding testament to – you guessed it – finding the love of your life, sailed to #2 in the US and Canada. Then it’s back to her now-signature rowdy-girl sound for the album’s second single, and Clark’s first chart-topper. The spitfire in Terri’s voice on ‘You’re Easy On The Eyes’ is befitting of the biting lyrics.

‘Everytime I Cry’ peaked just outside the top 10 at #12, and featured a music video depicting spousal abuse. Though the lyrics don’t get into specifics one way or the other, the song was heralded for its message. A fourth and final single failed to make any headway, but deserved an audience nonetheless. ‘Unsung Hero’ sings the praises of appreciation of one who ‘works their magic quietly’. What starts out as a quiet, almost-acoustic production eases into a choir-filled bombast of sound half-way through, contrasting the simplicity of its message.

With most of the singles stacked on the first half, the second half allows Clark to showcase her music muscle a bit. My favorite from the set is ‘Getting Even With The Blues’, one of several songs from the writing team of Clark with Tom Shapiro and Chris Waters. Clark pours on her smokiest vocal to this elegant honky-tonk ballad in the piano-bar fashion. Likewise top-shelf are a punchy take on Kim Richey’s quintessential break-up tune ‘I’m Alright’ and the shuffling country sound of ‘This Ole Heart’.

Other tracks don’t come together so well. ‘Not Getting Over You’ is more in the contemporary mold, slowly morphing into a power ballad. Perhaps the layers of production are added to mask the fact that the lyrics are pretty weak and unsubstantial. This may also be the case with tracks like ‘Till I Get There’ and the almost-title-track ‘That’s How I Feel’.

Despite a couple of missteps, mostly sound-wise, How I Feel would be Clark’s strongest set of songs to date.

Grade: B+

Buy it from amazon.

Album Review: Terri Clark – ‘Just The Same’

Terri’s second album, released in 1996, followed along broadly the same pattern as her debut, balancing high-energy radio friendly entertainment with traditional roots. She co-wrote most of the material, most often alongside the established songwriting team of Chris Waters and Tom Shapiro, and the quality is consistently high. Waters also co-produced with Terri and Keith Stegall.

The first single was, however, actually a cover of the Warren Zevon song/Linda Ronstadt 70s hit ‘Poor Poor Pitiful Me’. Terri’s vibrant version (belying the dark lyrics) peaked at #5 on Billboard and #1 in Canada. The equally lively up-tempo Emotional Girl’ (written with Rick Bowles and Chris Waters) was another Canadian #1 and US top 10 hit. The title track and third single is a gorgeous mellow love ballad with a little more of an AC feel and a subtle string arrangement, which allowed Terri to show off her vocals, but radio was less receptive to Terri’s ballads than to her up-tempo numbers, and this peaked disappointingly low at #16.

The twangy ‘Something In The Water’ was the last single, but while it has a good groove and attacking vocal, it is not particularly memorable, and only just squeaked into the top 40. Equally twangy, but more memorable, is the ironic salute to an old ‘Neon Flame’ (written by Terri and Chris Waters with Chuck Jones), and perhaps this would have been a better single choice. I really like the catchy and uncompromising ‘You Do Or You Don’t’ (one of the few outside songs, written by Bob DiPiero and Karen Staley), and this too would have made a great choice as a single. Terri’s love interest isn’t quite committed to her, and she sets out an ultimatum, telling him firmly he either loves her, or he doesn’t:

Love ain’t followed by a question mark…
We’re not talkin’ brain surgery

The other song not written by Terri is the amped-up bluegrass of ‘Hold Your Horses’, a revival of a song written by Carl Jackson and Pam Gadd for the latter’s former band Wild Rose. ‘Twang Thang’ keeps up the energy levels, but is rather noveltyish. The mid-tempo ‘Not What I Wanted To Hear’ has a rueful admission to herself that the guy isn’t going to call.

My favorite song here is Terri’s solo composition ‘Keeper Of The Flame’, with its beautiful melody, excellent vocal, and downbeat lyric about a neglected wife desperately holding on to hope that things will somehow go back to the way things were:

I am the keeper of the flame
You only helped my build the fire
And it’s getting harder every day
To make our love burn with desire
Cause if I left it up to you
Only ashes would remain

Another outstanding ballad is ‘Any Woman’, where Terri gives us a sympathetic portrait of a woman’s heartbreak, suffered in silence:

Night can be so cold when a memory’s all you hold
Yeah, I know what she’s going through tonight
Any woman who’s been hurt by a man understands
It’ll take some time for her to find a way to love again

There is another great vocal here, balancing sympathetic advice to a man interested in the heartbreak victim, and sisterly empathy with the woman.

Just The Same has been certified platinum in the US and double platinum in Canada.  This is an excellent record, full of fine material delivered with commitment.

Grade: A

It’s still easy to find, both digitally and on CD, with used copies being extremely cheap.

Album Review: Terri Clark – ‘Terri Clark’

By the mid-90s, Nashville had drifted back towards more pop-leaning music, but there was still room on radio playlists for more traditional fare. Two Canadian women — Shania Twain and Terri Clark, representing both ends of the spectrum — had their commercial breakthroughs in 1995. Twain’s crossover music was more commercially successful, but Clark’s self-titled debut, produced by Keith Stegall and Chris Waters, struck a chord with fans of traditional country, and sold quite respectably in its own right.

The sassy up-tempo “Better Things To Do”, which Clark co-wrote Tom Shapiro and Chris Waters, was her first release. Immediately successful, it set the tone for the remainder of her career; her most successful singles over the next decade and a half, were up-tempo numbers in a similar vein. It peaked at #3 in both the US and Canada, and it remains one of my favorite Terri Clark tunes. The same songwriting team produced Terri’s follow-up hit, “When Boy Meets Girl”, which also reached #3 on the US and Canadian charts.

For the album’s third single, Mercury chose the traditional ballad “If I Were You”, which is the finest song on the album. Written solely by Terri, it demonstrated her skill as a songwriter, in addition to her fine vocal talent. Very similar in theme to Reba McEntire’s 1986 album cut “If You Only Knew”, the song deals with a woman who seeks relationship advice from a single friend. Instead of offering tea and sympathy, the friend (Clark) advises her friend to try and go home work things out, because the single life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Though it reached #1 in Canada, “If I Were You” didn’t perform quite as well in the US, peaking at #8. In a trend that would continue for the remainder of Terri’s major label career, US radio programmers proved to be somewhat lukewarm to her ballads. This was certainly the case with Clark’s next single, “Suddenly Single”, another tune she wrote with Shapiro and Waters, which just missed the Top 10 in Canada, peaking at #11, and fizzling out at #34 on the US chart. While to this day I remain perplexed as to why “If I Were You” didn’t chart higher, radio’s resistance to “Suddenly Single” is somewhat more justified. It’s a rather pedestrian song, saved by Sonny Garrish’s excellent steel guitar work. I’d have preferred to see “The Inside Story” released to radio, though it was probably too traditional to have had any realistic chance to become a bona fide hit. “Is Fort Worth Worth It”, the only tune in which Terri does not share a songwriting credit, is another one of my favorites. Like “The Inside Story”, it was likely deemed too traditional to send to radio.

The line-dancing craze was at the peak of its popularity in the mid-90s, and many of the songs on Terri Clark appear to have been written with that in mind. Tunes like “Was There A Girl On Your Boy’s Night Out”, “Flowers After The Fact”, and “Something You Should’ve Said” are all lyrically-light, beat-driven songs that are pleasant enough to listen to, but not particularly memorable.

I find that this is another one of those albums that I might enjoy more if it were sequenced differently. The first half is much stronger than the second. I tend to lose interest in it after track #7 (“When We Had It Bad”), as the only truly great track after that is “The Inside Story.” But while I do find some of the songs to be a bit weak, I wouldn’t classify any of them as actually being bad.

Terri Clark peaked at #13 on the Billboard’s US Top Country Albums chart, earning platinum status for sales of more than 1 million units in the US. In Canada, it reached #2 and earned triple-platinum status there, which in the 90s signified domestic sales in excess of 300,000 units. It remains her best-selling album in her native country, and is tied with her next two releases in the US.

Grade: B+

Terri Clark is available inexpensively from third-party sellers at Amazon.

Album Review: Joe Diffie – ‘Honky Tonk Attitude’

April 1993 saw the release of Joe Diffie’s third studio album on the Epic label. Honky Tonk Attitude would continue Joe’s ascent to country stardom as it produced 4 hit singles, the first 3 of them hitting the top 5.  Likewise, the album itself was Joe’s first to place inside the top 10 on the country albums chart, and would also be his first to earn platinum certification.  As Honky Tonk Attitude continued the success Diffie had earned with his prior albums, it found the singer shifting gears a bit, away from the ballad-heavy albums that came before it. Still, Joe ably wraps his warm and flexible baritone around a couple of decidedly traditional country numbers and a handful of up-tempo ditties ranging from clever to silly.

The lead single and title track to the album is one of several Joe Diffie singles that sort of gel together into one giant ball of loud in my head.  Other artists are guilty of this sort of overindulgence into up-tempo with wailing guitars and tongue-between-teeth lyrics.  Brooks & Dunn’s massive success with ‘Boot Scootin’ Boogie’ certainly helped fuel this wildfire of line dance-inspired country hits.  This tune about getting on your ‘Friday night, get right honky tonk attitude‘ peaked at #5 just about the time of the album’s release.

Proving that when given a better lyric, he could inject just the right amount of humor when the song calls for it, Joe’s performance on the clever ‘Prop Me Up Beside The Jukebox (If I Die)’ finds the singer showing maybe why he recorded so many songs of this nature: he’s actually really good at them. This time he fared just a bit better with country radio, and rose to #3 with this single.  Still not breaking out of the novelty mode already set by this album, the next single tells the story of Billy Bob (repeatedly) painting his and Charlene’s name on the water tower to profess his love.  And to prove his devotion – and also make sure everybody could see it – he uses the bright green color of John Deere tractors.  It’s a rather endearing story song, and writer Dennis Linde draws on very specific images to give a very clear picture in your head as the song plays.  ’John Deere Green’ would be the third top 5 single from Honky Tonk Attitude.

Album Review: Brooks and Dunn – ‘Tight Rope’

The duo’s sixth studio album, 1999’s Tight Rope, saw them in bit of a rut. After a string of multi-platinum sellers, this album remains their only studio effort to date (apart from their latest, Cowboy Town) not to be classified platinum, and none of the three singles was a really big hit. Each of the previous albums had elicited five singles, with all but two making the top ten, with a good proportion hitting the top of the charts, until ‘South of Santa Fe’ had faltered outside the top 40 just before the release of Tight Rope. Poor Kix never got another single released after this catastrophic failure.

This really is an album of two halves. Not only did Kix and Ronnie divide the vocal leads fairly evenly, they contributed six songs each as writers, each singing lead on his own songs, with Ronnie also getting a bonus cover. Furthermore, although the duo are credited as co-producers throughout, one suspects this was a matter of courtesy. Kix’s tracks were co-produced by old friend Don Cook, but Ronnie’s were co-produced by Byron Gallimore at another studio. All the singles came from Ronnie’s half. As a whole the album sounds their most pop-influenced to date.

Only three singles came from Tight Rope, and the first two failed to crack the top 10. ‘Missing You’, a 1980s pop cover, reached #15. The arrangement may have been a little too pop for country radio, with its whispery call-and-response background vocals, but Ronnie’s lead vocal is excellent. The cheerful rocked-up honky tonker ‘Beer Thirty’ barely squeaked into the top 20, despite being in the same vein as many of their past successes, and the chart failure of this must have been a shock. The big declaration of love ballad ‘You’ll Always Be Loved By Me’, their only single released in the year 2000, deservedly did better, reaching #5. This was the song which provided the album title, from the line “trust is a tightrope we all have to walk”.

Ronnie is in great voice on this album. The brooding ballad ‘Hurt Train’ and the sad ‘All Out Of Love’ have a slightly pop feel, but are very well sung. ‘Goin’ Under Gettin’ Over You’, which opens the set is a fairly brisk number about getting resigned to heartbreak, which might have been better with a more subdued vocal. It did actually get a small amount of unsolicited radio airplay.

Album Review: Tanya Tucker – ‘What Do I Do With Me’

Had she chosen to retire from the music business around 1990, Tanya Tucker could have done so knowing that she’d secured her musical legacy. By then she had been a presence on the country charts for nearly two decades, had released 20 studio albums, and secured 30 top 10 hits, including ten #1′s. She was also the “last woman standing”, the only artist who had been having top 10 hits in the early 70s to still be regularly reaching the top of the charts. No one was surprised that her winning streak still continued, but few realized at the time that Tucker had not yet reached her commercial or artistic peak.

Released in July 1991, What Do I Do With Me is the jewel in Tucker’s musical crown. It follows the same formula as its predecessor, Tennessee Woman , combining radio-friendly, pop-infused uptempo songs with tender, heartfelt ballads. However, this time around the song selection was stronger and that is what makes What Do I Do With Me Tanya Tucker’s masterpiece.

For the lead single, Tucker again turned to her old friend Paul Davis, who wrote the sassy, harmonica-driven “Down To My Last Teardrop”, in which the long-suffering protagonist tells her unfaithful partner that he’s drained her of every last drop of emotion. Tucker took this tune all the the way to #2 in the early summer of 1991.

The next single was the title track. Beautifully written by Royce Porter, L. David Lewis, and David Chamberlain, it tells the story of a woman wondering aloud how she will occupy the free time she suddenly has in the aftermath of a break-up. This is the type of ballad at which Tucker excels. Every line is filled with emotion, yet her performance is restrained and never over-the-top. Like its predecessor, “(Without You) What Do I Do With Me”, just missed the top spot on Billboard’s country singles chart, peaking at #2. This is the kind of song that has been missing in action from country radio in recent years, having fallen from favor in lieu of happier, empowerment anthems.

“Some Kind Of Trouble”, a more blues-infused number, didn’t chart quite as high, peaking at #3. Written by Mike Reid, Brent Maher and Don Potter, this song is more beat-driven than the previous singles, but the lyrics are still quite strong. I suspect that it was probably written with The Judds in mind, given the Maher and Potter connection, and would have likely been recorded by that duo had they still been active.

The fourth and final single, “If Your Heart Ain’t Busy Tonight” is a more light-hearted number written by Tom Shapiro and Chris Waters, that peaked at #4.