This husband-and-wife duo’s debut has hovered around the music box for over a month now, catching play time at numerous junctures as music and listener struggled to make a connection. Positive indicators abound: estimable guitar maven Albert Lee, steel legend Al Perkins, an Everlys chestnut, co-writes with Steve Earle and Chris Hillman, a Buddy and Julie Miller gem — even the ubiquitous guest-warble by Emmylou.
Compare Michael and Dyann Woody’s version of “I Don’t Mean Maybe” with the Millers’ exhilarating original and it pretty much holds its own. Michael and Earle’s “The Rain Came Down” sports a gently comforting Jayhawks’ vibe; likewise for his collaboration with Hillman on “Second Wind”. And the Woodys’ loving needlepoint of Boudleaux Bryant’s “Like Strangers” would be a credit to any Everly Brothers tribute.
So, what’s wrong here? For one thing, Michael Woody’s dozen years as a Music Row tune-churner are painfully obvious when he’s not teamed with a big-league slugger. The hokey “down home” schmaltz of the opening “Mama And Them” is poured over the kind of dorky, fake-rock/boogie that has been the bane of Nashville from Alabama to Sawyer Brown to Brooks & Dunn (complete with multi-syllabic “lord”s to patch lazy gaps in meter). For another, producer Brian Ahern tries to compensate on the weaker material by reverting to a chubby, ’70s “hair band” drum sound, compounding the problems.
So, like that otherworldly latex-paint floating fat-free turkey sausage on the biscuits-and-gravy offered at interstate restaurant chains, the Woodys have hedged their bets. Unable to decide between real and manufactured country, they’ve opted, disappointingly, to straddle the chasm.