There You Go Again
You've certainly got to hand it to Kenny Rogers--the guy is irrepressible. After bottoming out as a country-rocker in theFirst Editionin the 1960s, he soon bounced back as a country-flavored pop crooner in a Nashville leisure-suit disguise in the late 1970s. Then he proceeded to dramatically reinvent himself as one of the most popular easy-listening pop icons of the 1980s. And now that Nashville is once again putting heavy emphasis on the "pop" in pop-country, Rogers, now in his early 60s, has bounced back yet again with a No. 1 country hit, "Buy Me a Rose," from 1999's platinum album,She Rides Wild Horses.There You Go Again, Rogers's 59th album, seems destined to keep his latest comeback in high gear. It's an unremarkable but warmly engaging collection that mixes a few amiable, laid-back country tunes ("Homeland" and the shuffle "Blue Train") with a slew of the cushy piano-framed soft-pop ballads ("Crazy Me," "I Wish I Could Say That," and the lovely "Until Forever's Gone") for which he's best known. Though Rogers's voice is expressive, he knows its limitations as well as anybody. Thus he's surrounded himself with a star-studded host of guest duet partners and harmony singers such asAlison Krauss,Brad Paisley,Steve Wariner, andSuzy Bogguss. The result is nothing fancy or groundbreaking--it's just Kenny Rogers, the smooth king of the country-pop middle ground, doing what he's always done best, with poise, artistry, and assurance.--Bob Allen