★★★★★
The best cover albums have an air of inevitability about them: you put a great singer with great songs and of course you're going to get magic. But that's not always the case. Sometimes you match a great singer with songs he or she genuinely loves and end up with a project that's very personally meaningful to the artist and his or her most devoted fans but of limited interest from a purely musical standpoint...
- www.the9513.com
2010-12-07
★★★★★
With the tide at country radio turning ever more 'pop-oriented,' it was inevitable that artists like Mark Chesnutt would lose airplay space to cookie-cutter acts favored by corporation-controlled radio play lists. Rather than wallow in self-pity over this fact, Mark Chesnutt's last two independently released albums were two of his, and country music's, best efforts. When his first single for Lofton Creek Records was released, the song was a moderate hit for Chesnutt...
- roughstock.com
2010-12-07
★★★★★
While known as one of the purest country vocalists of the last 20 years, Mark Chesnutt's heroes are country with a bit of a rock and roll. These heroes are Waylon, Willie, Kris, David Allen Coe and Merle Haggard. It's exactly why this collection of his heroes' best songs is simply titled Outlaw. Mark and his wife even named his first child Waylon Nelson after Waylon and Willie and their deep influence, while always present in Chesnutt's music, is given a proper treatment here...
- roughstock.com
2010-12-07
★★★★★
It's a bit of a jolt to hear Chesnutt, one of the last of the hardcore honky tonkers, open his album with a Diane Warren love ballad. But after that tip of the hat to radio, the wiry Texan goes on to find enough snappy rhythm tunes and scampering Western swing to keep the toes tapping. What's missing? Only a big career tune to make this middleweight a heavy.
- ew.com
2009-06-12
★★★★★
No one sings a "hurtin' song" better than George Jones, although these two newcomerswould like to try. Chesnutt, who hails from Jones' hometown ofBeaumont, Tex., and got the Master to endorse him in his liner notes,has a comely, smooth baritone and a supple way of moving through hisvocal range...
- ew.com
2009-06-04
★★★★★
Chesnutt's claim to authenticity is that he grew up in Beaumont like George Jones and cut a lot of dud 45s like his daddy before him--not that he came out of the East Texas that produced the music, but that he came out of the music East Texas produced. Forget it, Mark--you're Nashville. On your breakthrough single you hang out in the honky tonk as an alternative to playing golf. On your breakthrough tearjerker you only wish you could wilt as many bouffants as that fat wimp Garth...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-02-27
★★★★★
the cliches tuneful, the jokes better, it was ever thus ("Old Flames Have New Names," "Bubba Shot the Jukebox")
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-02-27
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