When recording a solo album, any wife of a famous musician is in a tough spot. Her husband’s skills can certainly enhance the disc, but his presence might make the album seem like a pet project, an indulgence that never would’ve been released if he weren’t Mr. Celebrity. Many Beatles fans who crack wise about the solo works of Linda McCartney and Yoko Ono have never even heard them.
Tanya Rae Brown’s debut will escape that fate because it’s pretty darn close to a Junior Brown release — but with his wife/manager/rhythm guitarist handling the vocals. Junior plays lead and steel guitar on this solid EP, he produced it, and he sings a fine duet with the Mrs. on “His And Hers”.
This five-song collection kicks off with a feisty “Gad About”, which Tanya Rae often sings at Junior’s concerts. The choice of material is uniformly superb, and Junior’s talking steel solo spices up the standard “Someday You’ll Want Me to Want You”.
Harlan Howard’s “I Wouldn’t Buy a Used Car from Him” is a fun jaunt, and Tanya Rae unleashes her full vocal firepower for the contemporary Christian cut “In Remembrance Of Me”. On an Amy Grant or Cristy Lane album, this tune would be drenched in strings and syrupy backing vocals, but here it’s a spare, tasteful piano ballad. Junior’s not on this track because a busy guitar would have only muddied the mighty message.
