Written by Let’s get one thing out of the way right now — this is more of a pop album than a country album. Lionel Richie wanted to return to his southern roots, so he re-recorded some of his biggest hits with guest vocals from country artists who are frequently heard on mainstream country radio (although Willie Nelson and Kenny Rogers make appearances on this album). If the music from Tuskegee were playing in the background and you weren’t paying particular attention, you’d probably think you were hearing the original Richie versions from 25 years ago — the arrangements are largely intact, with just a touch of mandolin or steel tossed in occasionally.
I had hoped he would change the arrangements to something more country (whatever that is these days), but once I got over the disappointment that this albums wasn’t what I expected and took it for what it was, overall it’s not a bad album. It does suffer from most of the songs building up in noise level to the point that the bridge is a wall of noise — a little subtlety would have gone a long way here. All that said, I never thought Lionel Richie was a bad pop singer and I like his music. Your enjoyment of the album will depend a lot on if you liked Lionel’s music way back when. Anyhow, on to the music.
On the first cut Lionel is joined by Blake Shelton for “You Are.” Blake is not as bad a singer as his solo material makes him out to be, and the album gets off on a nice bouncy opening. Things go downhill a bit on the second track, “Say You, Say Me” with Jason Aldean joining Lionel. This one builds in noise level until it’s pretty much unlistenable. Too bad, as it starts off with perhaps the most interesting arrangement on the album, heavy on steel guitar in the intro. Things rebound nicely on the third track however, when Hootie chimes in on “Stuck On You.” Darius Rucker’s warm vocals wrap nicely around this song. An acoustic guitar leads you gently into this song.
Lionel’s one legitimate country credit from the old days was “Deep River Woman” which he originally recorded with Alabama. This time around he is joined by Little Big Town. As much as I liked the old version with Randy Owen and company, I may actually like this current version better (is that blasphemy?). Things stay mellow on the fifth track when one of the finest ballad singers out there today, Kenny Chesney, joins in on “My Love.”
The next three tracks miss badly. Combine Rascal Flatts and “Dancing On the Ceiling” and you know things will not turn out well. All I can say is that it isn’t as bad as I feared. Then Jennifer Nettles (aka Sugarland when she tows around the largely useless Kristian Bush) lends her overly dramatic (pompous?) vocals to “Hello.” The triple play is complete with Tim McGraw losing his southern accent (which he can do on command) for a not good version of “Sail On” (which starts out quiet enough but is one of the worst offenders on the album for building up to a wall of noise).
Then comes Shania Twain. Oh, where have you been? Love her or hate her, you have to admit that Shania has more than a little talent, and she demonstrates that well when she fills in for Diana Ross on “Endless Love.” Very nice. Then Billy Currington (who can be very good when his material equals his vocal ability) delivers a nice addition to “Just For You” which bounces along quite pleasantly.
The album wraps up with three non-mainstream superstars. First up is the one song on the album that Lionel wrote but was a big hit for someone else. That someone is Kenny Rogers, and the two perform Kenny’s big hit “Lady.” I didn’t like the song when it first came out, and I still don’t like it — it’s a bit too whiny for my tastes. But then comes the highlight of the album — Willie Nelson brings his own styling to “Easy.” It’s almost like the song was written for him. The album finishes up with a logical pairing of song and artist — “All Night Long” has that Jimmy Buffett beat to it, and Jimmy and the Coral Reefer Band join up with Lionel to give the album a partying finish.
Okay, how do you rate this album? On a country music scale, it falls somewhat short (although “Deep River Woman” and “Easy” would fit right in to any country format). On a pop scale, it’s pretty good. It has its big stumbles along the way, but Kenny Chesney, Darius Rucker, Billy Currington and Shania Twain (along with Willie and Little Big Town) make it easy like Sunday morning. Let’s give it three and a half stars out of five.
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