Where the Heart Is:  Music from the Motion Picture
This is exactly the kind of soundtrack you'd expect to complement a movie that takes a humorous if sentimental look at the power of love and friendship. Natalie Portman, Ashley Judd, Stockard Channing, and Joan Cusack star in the film and they have musical counterparts inBeth Nielsen Chapman,Martina McBride, and teen blues starShannon Curfman. All tracks are manicured performances high in cinematic gloss and often enveloped in swooning strings or other effects of grandeur. It's only appropriate then that a stylist as accomplished asLyle Lovettwould smooth overRay Charles's "What'd I Say," and that eternal studio pro and road veteranJohn Hiattwould contribute the workmanlike R&B-influenced; "Let It Slip Away." One sure surprise isJoan Osborne's collaboration with Tommy Sims for the hip-hop-R&B; of "Rowdy Booty Time." Most successful isEmmylou HarrisandPatty Griffin's duet of "Beyond the Blue," on which their complementary voices merge with a subdued rhythm track for one of the soundtrack's few inspired moments.--Rob O'Connor