Heartbreaker's Hall of Fame
Music Row Magazine DISClaimer (Robert K. Oermann) The DisCovery Award goes to Sunny Sweeney. I previously encountered her when judging in Texas for the inaugural season of Nashville Star. I liked her then, and I like her now.  SUNNY SWEENEY/Heartbreaker's Hall Of Fame Writer: S. Sweeney; Producer: Tommy Detamore/Tom Lewis; Publisher: Songs of Sunny, BMI; SS (track) (www.sunnysweeney.com) -The title tune to Sunny's CD presents a Texas thrush with a delightfully personable delivery that's country to the core. Extra points for the excellent harmonica and steel-guitar work, as well as for the pointed lyric. --Robert K. Oermann --Music Row MagazineCMT.com Hear This Voice: Sunny Sweeney My current main musical squeeze, though, is a young Texas woman named Sunny Sweeney. She possesses an exquisite, pure, yearning honky-tonk voice that floats above the music the way that few singers' vocals can do. (Think Vince Gill, whose voice does that.) Her debut CD is Heartbreaker's Hall of Fame. Sweeney is a talented songwriter, as evidenced by the title song (which, is not surprisingly, about the jerks in her life and other women's' lives) and by "Ten Years Pass" and "Slow Swinging Western Tunes," but she also seems an astute song picker. On the album, she draws from such skilled songwriters as Jim Lauderdale (who also sings a duet with her on "Lavender Blue"), Iris Dement, Keith Sykes, Libbi Bosworth, Audrey Auld, Tim Carroll and Thom Schuyler. As she writes on her Web site, "I've heard it said before that good cover songs are better than bad originals. I have written plenty of songs, but only the ones I felt suited the mood of the record are the ones I wanted to use on there." She's been a regular performer at Austin's Poodle Dog Lounge, a cinderblock bunker of a honky-tonk that caters to people who are serious about good country music and serious drinking. And this is a serious honky-tonk album, steel guitar-drenched and sweaty and lovely at the same time. I know that not everyone still appreciates honky-tonk music. God bless Texas for keeping that proud music alive and well. --CMT.com Editorial Director Chet Flippo --CMT.com