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| LINDA RONSTADT We Ran (Elektra, 50 min) 4 stars |
| TRISHA YEARWOOD Where Your Road Leads (MCA Nashville, 42 min) 2½ stars |
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For Linda Ronstadt, who has found nearly everything she's released of late
exiled to "lite" radio, We Ran is an attempt to revisit the roots-rock
landscape she once defined and ruled. Thankfully, she's not only in great
form but in great company. Aided by such old colleagues as Bernie Leadon
and Waddy Wachtel, she powers her way through a set that includes songs
by John Hiatt ("When We Ran"), Bruce Springsteen ("If I Should Fall Behind"),
and Bob Dylan ("Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues"). Yet it's the new material -
notably, "Heartbreak Kind," a slithery duet with Leadon, and Wachtel's
affecting ballad "I Go to Pieces" - that impresses the most. Notable, too,
is veteran Glyn Johns's production, characteristically expansive but just
edgy enough. For Ronstadt's spiritual protégée Trisha Yearwood, who has found nearly everything she's released in her career restricted to the country corral, Where Your Road Leads is an attempt to head for the crossover pop hills, where her eclectic music has long deserved to roam. That she and coproducer Tony Brown should be satisfied with the generally lackluster arrangements here, however, is both surprising and disappointing. Tracks like "There Goes My Baby" and "I Don't Want to Be the One" are busy but dull, while others are subverted by rhythmic flatness. The set is nearly redeemed by Yearwood's performance in the torcher "Love Wouldn't Lie to Me," the soaring duet with Garth Brooks in the title cut, and the frisky "Bring Me All Your Lovin'." If only more of the album had such flavor. After all, as Ronstadt proved two decades ago, if it's popular, it's pop. |
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