has doubtless matured some since cutting his first album two years ago, but even then he was probably better than the generally mediocre production and material allowed. This time there's a much lighter touch in evidence, especially reflected in choices like Jesse Colin Young's "Sugar Babe" (a nice sprightly version, along the lines of the original) and "Paper Doll" (done acappella with a live audience—what sounds like the trombone break is really Edwards playing his hands, which is why it gets a laugh). The title cut is equally free-flowing; it comes from the Statler Brothers, is as tinselly-whimsical as its name suggests ("In his cowboy boots and rhinestone suits,/Flashy guitar/He makes the rounds of the bars and towns/Tryin' to be a hillbilly star"), and gets a fine, moving treatment here.
"Stop and Start It All Again" sounds just like a better - produced follow-up to "Sunshine," and if that doesn't make it single-wise the equally bouncy "Everything" surely will. "Dues Days Bar," "Longest Ride" and "Ballad of Upsy Daisy" are in pretty much the same cheery, painless vein. "Morning Train," providing a little temperamental balance, threatens to get lost in its inordinate (for Edwards) six-minute length and slightly stale arrangement (essentially Peter, Paul and Mary's), but it works out.
"Give Us a Song" is really lovely, a musical prayer set to old-fashioned lilting symmetry (it sounds like a round), with some exquisite violin from Edwards' gifted all-purpose bass and string man, Stuart Shulman. And the similarly poignant "It's a Beautiful Day" is nowhere near as commonplace as its title; slow, dreamy and eloquent, it's the kind of thing Edwards is capable of doing best. Likewise "Dream Song" and especially "That's What Our Life Is," which carries the album's most haunting verbal image: "They said I would shine like the lights in the city/I hoped it would be like the moon on the sea...." Here and elsewhere, Edwards concerns himself to a surprising degree with a problem he may or may not have been coping with of late—that of burdensome stardom, its crocodile friends ("Dues Days Bar"), its one-night sweethearts ("Longest Ride"), et cetera. Maybe it's as tough as he says, but for better or worse he should be due for a whole lot more of it once any or all of the much improved cuts here start making the rounds. (RS 131)
JANET MASLIN
