ROBIN & LINDA WILLIAMS
In The Company Of Strangers (Sugar Hill)
Reviewed by Shaun Dale

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Damn if they haven't done it again!

Robin & Linda Williams have put together another collection of new songs that sound like old friends. In The Company Of Strangers is chock full of the kind of songs that make you wonder "Why didn't I write that one?" I mean, they sound so simple, so natural, so somehow obvious. Then you realize that sounding that perfectly simple is about as hard a thing as there is to do. It's exactly why most songs sound so forced and contrived - because most songs are.

Of course, when they turn their attention to an old song that everybody knows, in this case Hank Williams' "Cold, Cold Heart," they find a way to make it sound brand new. Not by messing with it, but by performing it with just as much personal commitment and transparent affection as they devote to the best of their own tunes.

This is just a real fine album by an enormously talented couple. "This Is The Real Thing" is just what it says, and I don't know if "The Perfect Country Song" is the perfect country song, but it'll do until the next time they try. Which is real soon, I hope.

Track List:

The Hard Country * So It Go * Rumble * Sometime Tomorrow * So Long, See You Tomorrow * Bar Band In Hillbilly Heaven * Allow It * This Is The Real Thing * The Perfect Country Song * Some Peculiar Beast * Cold, Cold Heart * In The Company Of Strangers

© 2000 - Shaun Dale