March CD Review

March 1998

Clint Black -- Nothin' But The Taillights

This CD is another one of those 12 tracks for the price of 10. Clint Black has an interesting variety of songs on this CD. From Something That We Do(track #6), a slow song about love to Loosen Up My Strings(track #4), where Clint plays an electric guitar. This CD also has special guests, Martina McBride, Chet Atkins and Alison Krauss and Union Station.

Martina, sings duet with Clint on Still Holding On (track #5). If you saw the 1997 CMA Awards, Clint and Martina performed this song. It is amazing how well Martina and Clint sound together.

Ode To Chet (track #11) is a fun song with Certified Guitar Player (CGP) Chet Atkins playing samples of guitar riffs he has borrowed over the ages. The last 30 second or so of this song is Chet and Clint talking about family and guitars. The sad thing about this song is, it may be one if not the last Chet Atkins will have performed.

Our Kind of Love (track #3) features background vocals with Alison Kraus who also plays the fiddle and viola. You can barely make out Alison Kraus in this song, in fact it may have been better off if she had just kept to playing the fiddle and viola. Towards the end of the song you can pick out Alison just before Clint starts playing his harmonica and before the acoustic guitar kicks in at the very end. This song is more instrumental than vocal and provides a nice balance of the two.

All in all this is a fairly good CD, not as good as his 1995 One Emotion CD. There are a few tracks I could do without such as #4 Loosen Up My Strings, Clint really should stick to singing and the harmonica, at least just for this particular song. This sounds more like what Dwight Yoakam would do, with that type of electric guitar riffs and just the song in general. However, That Something in My Life (track #2) features Clint on the Electric Guitar, but with much milder riffs and more singing. Clint really not all that bad on electric guitar, when he does sound like an old Rock 'N Roller. If you like Clint Black, it is worth getting, especially since your are getting 12 tracks for the price of 10, so even if you don't like a couple it is still a good value.

Of course, I should mention something about Nothin But the Taillights (track #1), the title track. If you can recall what Summer's Comin' off the One Emotion album sounds like, this track is almost the same style. This song took me little getting use to, such as did Summer's Comin'.

Clint Black will be appearing in Queen Creek, AZ in April for the 4th annual Country Thunder USA. Next month I'll review the CD: Everywhere by Tim McGraw. Questions or comments about this review, use the e-mail link below.

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