Terri Clark (Mercury Nashville)
Terri Clark looks great in a cowgirl hat, but she is also establishing herself as one of Nashville's most consistent performers. This album, her fourth, suggests the calm, easy-paced approach of a singer who, at 32, doesn't feel that she has to impress anyone—the same enlightened approach Emmylou Harris has taken for years.
Clark varies her style effortlessly, from the on-the-road energy of "A Little Gasoline" to the sentimental, deliberate "Empty." Meanwhile, she subtly modulates her voice to better wring emotion from these 12 songs, several of which she cowrote (with Mary Chapin Carpenter and Gary Burr, among others). To compare her to her fellow Canadians, Clark is less flashy than Shania Twain, cooler than Anne Murray and less vocally pure than Michelle Wright. But Clark is as musical, as energetic and as ingratiating as any of them.
Bottom Line: Another welcome Canadian import
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