'When Being Who You Are is Not Enough': Patty Loveless review

"Being an artist or musician can sometimes be like a relationship where someone has a fixed idea of what they're looking for. It's difficult enough trying to figure out where you fit in and everybody seems to know exactly how you should look, how you should sound, who you should be…except you." -- Patty Loveless, in a cut-by-cut commentary on each track of "Dreaming my Dreams."

Patty Loveless had a nice niche carved out for herself, all right. For years, one could expect from her pop country sung with powerful pipes and albums with hits-a-plenty for comtemporary country music charts. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Not all pop country is bad.

But in 2001 she changed gears, stopped merely flirting with the music of her upbringing and went full-on bluegrass with the release of "Mountain Soul." She sang high, she played Merlefest ... and she got completely ignored by mainstream country radio for the first time in a long while. She strayed from her niche, what people had come to think she should be, and she did a damn respectable job of it.

So it was only a matter of time before everyone got to wondering "what's next?" from Loveless. Would her next album be another bluegrass scorcher, or would she head away from the hills and back to the flatlands of chartdom? After listening to "Dreaming My Dreams," out tomorrow, I can say the answer is a definitive ... um ... yes. Or no. Both and neither.

Ahem.

It's a shame CDs aren't like vinyl (for a lot of reasons). This CD would really benefit from being two-sided. Side One, maybe the first six tracks, are back to business. Sure, there's some mandolin, some steel guitar, but there's also some wailin' electric guitar (not a handsome mix with a mandolin) and some mighty slick production that gives a vibe that's more arena than barn dance. The first single from "Dreaming My Dreams" is "Keep Your Distance," a Richard Thompson song that's probably the poppiest song on the album, in terms of treatment, and one of my least favorites. Radio's gonna love it. Not that this Side One would be a throwaway, mind you. There's the nice Jim Lauderdale/Leslie Satcher tune "When Who You Are Is Not Enough" with some wonderful harmonies from an unusually low-singing Emmylou Harris. And a workable cover of "Dreaming My Dreams With You," once sung by Waylon Jennings but I think done best a few albums ago by Alison Krauss and Union Station.

But let's start Side Two with track 9, "Never Ending Song of Love." Here's where Loveless gets her bluegrass on. You've got your fiddles and mandolin and dobro for real on "Never Ending Song of Love," which is a duet with Mr. Dwight Yoakam. Now we're cooking! Lest you think that's a flash in the pan, you've got "Big Chance," co-written by Loveless and her husband/producer Emory Gordy Jr. as a follow up to "Pretty Little Miss" on "Mountain Soul." Good ol' bluegrass ditty about a young girl wanting to get married (even though her ma says "You ain't gonna marry that!") and get the heck outta the holler. Next is a cover of Steve Earle's "My Old Friend the Blues," and Side Two (and the CD itself) ends with the beautiful "When I Reach the Place I'm Going."

So it looks like Loveless is forging ahead on her old path -- solid, radio-friendly country music -- but is carrying a backpack of lessons learned from her "Mountain Soul" project. For a bluegrass/Americana music fan, "Dreaming My Dreams" may be a bit of a disappointment, but stick with it to the end of the CD and you'll be rewarded for your efforts. Loveless hasn't left the hills entirely, but it does look as though she's resuming Nashville as her permanent musical residence.