Janie Fricke
This star of Madison Avenue and Nashville sessions has settled into her own voice at long last. Unlike her previous LPs, this one does not keep the listener guessing whom she's trying to sound like. The only distractions in an altogether admirable album are Fricke's lapses in diction when singing hard-core country tunes like Some Fools Don't Ever Learn or Pass Me By (If You're Only Passing Through). For an Indiana-born woman who did United Airlines and Toyota commercials and otherwise speaks mainstream American to use "agin" for "again" and "buhee" for "be" can only be patronizing. That's not enough of a flaw, however, to diminish the charm of One Piece at a Time (written by Fricke's manager-boyfriend, Randy Jackson) or This Ain't Tennessee and He Ain't You, a song by Larry Bastian and James Shaw that deserves to become a country standard.
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