Audio Cassette review:
Sammy Kershaw - Labor of Love

Sammy Kershaw - Labor of Love

Band: Sammy Kershaw Title: Labor of Love Rating: Release Date: 04 November, 1997 Media: Audio Cassette Tracks: 1: Honky Tonk America 2: Shootin' the Bull (In an Old Cowtown) 3: One Day Left to Live 4: Cotton County Queen 5: Matches 6: Labor of Love 7: Thank God You're Gone 8: Little Did I Know 9: Arms Length Away 10: Roamin' Love 11: Love of My Life

Editoral Review " And what kind of music, according to Kershaw and McDill, should one expect to hear in today's honky-tonk? "Louie, Louie," "Proud Mary," and "Wooly Bully. Labor of Love, Sammy Kershaw's 1997 album, kicks things off with a Bob McDill song, "Honky Tonk America," a celebration of every dimly lit, beer-soaked nightclub in the nation--"a blue-collar place" with "a red-blooded crowd. " As much as country purists may hate to hear it, today's Southern factory worker, the sort of person who's the backbone of the country audience, is more likely to dance to "Wooly Bully" on a Friday night than to "New San Antonio Rose. " Kershaw is part of that core audience and so it's only natural that his Labor of Love reflects as much rock influence as country roots. Only purists would fault Kershaw for adding cannon-shot snare drums and cranked-up guitars to the fiddles and pedal-steel guitar, especially when these backing tracks sound as good as they do. Still, this set, like Kershaw's previous albums, is unfailingly polite. His voice is a marvelous instrument, and it sounds thick and creamy whether it comes out slow and sad, or fast and funny. The songs are all built around clever puns and catchy chorus jingles, but they never go any deeper than that. On the album's most country-sounding track, "Thank God, You're Gone," Kershaw and his cowriter Mike Fornes describe a romantic break-up with a captivating ballad melody and the usual lyric details. The singer captures the self-pity of the situation in a gorgeous vocal, but he never quite touches the depths of post-break-up despair where anger, regret, and yearning are tangled in an undoable knot. --Geoffrey Himes .. You can see a complete list of all Sammy Kershaw discography, or go back to the Sammy Kershaw tabs