Ed Bruce
Like his fellow mellow countryman Don Williams, Bruce occasionally slips over the line separating the calm and soothing from the doldrums. There are a couple of such slips on this LP, notably You Are a Rose. There is also a dreadfully rikky-tikky tune that sounds like something out of the Dean Martin songbook, Somebody's Somebody New. For the most part, though, Bruce again demonstrates he is a singer of substance. Fifteen to Forty-Three (Man in the Mirror), for instance, suggests real middle-aged introspection. There are two lively duets with Lynn Anderson, including the bittersweet Guy Clark song Fools for Each Other. Bruce even picks up the tempo effectively on Fishin' in the Dark. Maybe it's just as well Bruce's TV career never amounted to much. (He played James Garner's sidekick in the short-lived series Bret Maverick.) It would have been a shame to take him very far away from country music. (RCA)
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