Apart from the rocking finale (and radio-ready single), "Big Deal," the song selection is the story on the latest by country music's most decorated teen. While her platinum peers are casting country music as slick pop, Rimes remains true to the classic sensibility that's made her work so compelling from the first notes of
BLUE, her debut, to the last notes here. Fully half of the dozen cuts on this collection are
Patsy Cline covers, if you consider that Cline recorded Hank Williams's "Your Cheatin' Heart." And yes, "Crazy," "Faded Love," and "I Fall To Pieces" are exquisite -- both in the lush, Owen Bradley-inspired production flourishes and in LeAnn's preternaturally wise readings of these signature songs. Rimes, no stranger to crossover success, makes country go pop not by dismissing the tradition, but by taking into account the accrued history of the material. She delivers a swaggering version of "Your Cheatin' Heart" that is less about Hank than Joni James, who had a major pop hit with that same song in 1953. Similarly, in what may well be the most extraordinary vocal performance of her young career, she belts her way, in bluesy, growling fashion, through "Cryin' Time," filtering Buck Owens through Ray Charles and then copping some trademark phrasing from Trisha Yearwood, a country diva with a growing pop fan base. This is an homage for the ages, fashioned with reverence and respect, but Rimes's envelopment in the lyric gives it the force of individual statement. She does that time and again on LEANN RIMES, bridging pop and country ever so subtly, evoking and invoking the giants who have done it best, and then putting her own stamp on the style. Sounding right as rain, LeAnn Rimes is in her own league.
