Year: 2012
Album Review: Martina McBride, Hits and More
Martina McBride
Hits and More
The smooth powerful voice of Martina McBride has been a welcome radio presence for two decades now. After eighteen years of hit singles, top-selling albums, and industry awards, November 2010 brought the news that McBride was exiting the RCA Nashville label roster. In the wake of her departure from her longtime label home, her hitmaking days on RCA are summarized on the career retrospective Hits and More, featuring seventeen of McBride’s best-known hits arranged chronologically, plus three new recordings. All of her RCA albums are represented except for her 1992 debut The Time Has Come (which produced no significant hits) and her 2005 covers album Timeless (which produced only one minor Top 20 hit with McBride’s rendition of Lynn Anderson’s “Rose Garden”).
Single Review: Alison Krauss & Union Station, “My Love Follows You Where You Go”
Whenever we get new music from Alison Krauss & Union Station, there are two things we can generally count on: stellar musicianship, and pure, naturally beautiful vocals. Still, one variable is whether or not the music builds on the group’s tried-and-true musical formula of modern-bluegrass-meets-adult-pop, and moves it forward such that the approach does come across as merely business-as-usual. Last year’s set Paper Airplane contained the usual goods, but suffered to some extent from what one might call the plodding midsection syndrome – a cluster of competent but not particularly memorable tracks bookended by moments of brilliance.
Album Review: The Little Willies, For the Good Times
The Little Willies
For the Good Times
After having first formed in 2003, The Little Willies released their self-titled debut album in 2006, four years after pianist and vocalist Norah Jones had found success with her jazz and pop flavored solo album Come Away With Me.
Six years later, a second Little Willies album finally comes to light, following in the tradition of the first by featuring covers of country classics. For the Good Times finds The Little Willies covering classics songs by some of country music’s most revered (and most covered) artists, including nods to Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, Loretta Lynn, and Dolly Parton, among others.
