Tanya Tucker
Nobody overdoes vamping the way Tucker has since she decided to become the femme fatale of country music. It is hard to take seriously her pouty performances, her Frederick's of Nashville outfits and her dubious choice of material, which here includes both the semiexplicit title tune and Halfway to Heaven, which seems to be about orgasms. More's the pity, since Tanya still has the drive that made so many of her teenage hits so appealing. However, she has salvaged from her overwrought romance with Glen Campbell a touching duet, Shoulder to Shoulder. Overall, though, Lacy J. Dalton tries half as hard yet comes across twice as sensual. The farther she strays from the raw, raspy honky-tonk sound that dominated her first two albums, the less effective she is, as she demonstrates more than once on this LP. But she still struts her high-intensity stuff on Feedin' the Fire and Let Me in the Fast Lane (a trucking opus with some put-your-key-in-my-ignition sexual imagery as overt as Tucker's). Wild Turkey is a happily raucous, Dixiefied rouser by Hugh Moffatt and Pebe Sibert, whose classic country wordplays include the lines "Don't get the impression/That I care 'bout what you do/But when it gets close to Thanksgiving/I'd hide if I were you."
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