Album: Sheryl Crow, "100 Miles From Memphis" (A&M)
One of the greatest episodes of "The Partridge Family" involves a mix-up of schedules in which the Partridges wind up performing for a faux Black Panther organization in Detroit instead of the Temptations. Characters played by Richard Pryor and Lou Gossett, Jr., protest, but the Partridges kick things into "can't we all get along" mode with a new, semi-funky tune penned on the spot by David Cassidy's Keith. "Bandala" gets everyone dancing.
That image came to mind during the third listen to Sheryl Crow 's nod to the proximity of her childhood home to the soul music capital, and its effect on her musical taste. "100 Miles" is not a soul album or even much of a tribute -- half the 12 songs don't come close to approximating the sounds that came out of the Stax, Hi and Sun studios in their prime.
Crow has a few tunes that will sit well alongside her canon -- "Summer Day" and "Peaceful Feeling," for example, are two bits of bubbly seasonal pop that bear a relationship to Booker T. & the MGs like "Bandala" is to Motown. A couple of songs have radio-friendly qualities that could take her beyond the adult contemporary format: "Long Road Home" would work for country; "Say What You Want" is an update of Memphis soul with potential to crack Lady Gaga-dominated playlists.
Were Crow to issue this album with a title of no apparent significance -- like "Wildflowers" and "Detours" -- there would not be such a determined attempt to see if she succeeds in achieving her stated goal, specifically crafting a tip of the cowboy hat to Southern soul. Crow sounds professional and engaged, as does her band, but that essence of great soul music -- the combination of tension and release in the vocals, horns and organs -- is absent throughout. No one will confuse her with Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings.
"Our Love is Fading," the 6-1/2 minute opening number, encapsulates all that is right and wrong about the album. The horns are powerful, the melody captivating, the production crystal clear and Crow sounds energized. Yet simultaneously, there's none of the spark of great soul music from the '60s and early '70s, none of reckless abandon one would hear in a singer's voice, a horn chart or a guitar solo; sultry as she sounds, the album is too clean for its own good. It's more a soundtrack for a blues cruise than a cruise from the heartland to the blues.
Her producers get it right on their end: "Peaceful Feeling" and her cover of Terence Trent D'Arby's "Sign Your Name" have a fine pumping bass, the sort you would find on an Al Green album in the early 1970s. But it's her decision to purr instead of scratch and claw that make the recording bloodless.
