| Mark McGuinn Mark McGuinn Release Date: 05.08.2001 VFR Records See the Video for "Mrs. Steven Rudy" 300K 100K 56K He�s a breath of fresh air in a town choking on stale, recirculated ideas. With his debut single, �Mrs. Steven Rudy,� currently sitting in the Top Ten of every major country chart, Mark McGuinn is Music Row�s success story du jour, a slightly offbeat indie artist who seems to have thumbed his nose at the odds. His voice may variously call to mind Ronnie Dunn�s flexed tenor or James Taylor�s playful phrasing, but ultimately McGuinn sounds like no one but himself, remarkably so for a new artist. Probably a lot of this has to do with the fact that he�s already a fully developed songwriter with authorial credit on all but one of the CD�s songs. Do more �Mrs. Steven Rudy�-type hits lie in wait on Mark McGuinn? Let�s hope so. The gods have already proven friendly once, and the album does contain plenty of worthy material. �That�s A Plan� rides a similar banjo-with-drum-loop groove as its protagonist slips the bonds of small-town life: �Gonna hitch my wagon to wandering star/A guy like me can sure get far/With a tank of gas and a credit card.� Romantic ballads like �Heaven Must Be Missing You� and �If The World Was Mine� display a wide-eyed earnestness that nicely counterbalances �Mrs. Steven Rudy��s cockiness. Jangly guitars propel �All About The Ride� as it delivers a message suggesting that the goal reached is not nearly so rewarding as the reaching itself. The wistful �Love Don�t Float� gives the album its loveliest melodic moment amidst conga slaps and weeping steel guitar. Even in this sad setting McGuinn�s irrepressible hopefulness stands like a pillar. A clever O. Henry twist brings a smile to the edgy �No Way,� a story of a young woman turning her back on family wealth in order to follow her heart. �She Doesn�t Dance� ranks as the most country offering here, a tale of infidelity wherein a man accidentally witnesses his woman behaving with a stranger in ways she�s never behaved with him. The album�s closer, �Done It Right,� sounds like it�s especially close to McGuinn�s own rebel heart, as it proclaims that playing by the rules is exactly what his heroes didn�t do: �What if Columbus gave in and gave up/And Rosa had moved to the back of that bus/And Martin stopped marching and Elvis drove trucks/What if they�d done it right?� It�s interesting to compare Mark McGuinn with rising star keith urban who uses similar melodic and percussive ingredients to create a compelling pop-country stew. But if the brooding urban has become the new prince of cool, McGuinn seems cast as a goateed jester of sorts, a likable optimist with a keen sense of humor who doesn�t take himself too seriously. The kind of guy you might like to have as your next-door neighbor. Hey, just ask Mrs. Steven Rudy. -- Larry Wayne Clark -- |