Search - Anthony Crawford :: Anthony Crawford

Sweet Alt-Country/Folk-Pop Ear Candy....

David W. Small | Vicenza Italy | 05/25/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"How this little GEM of an album fell between the cracks is one of those sad-story mysteries of the unknown new artist. With the right kind of promotion and support from a major label this guy would have SURELY taken his place among the at least, "REASONABLY WELL KNOWN". But the small private label (Little Dog Records) probably did next to nothing to promote him. The first problem is the same thing that's hurt The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band for years; no home on the radio. Just a little too POP for the County stations and too County for the POP stations. He doesn't neatly fit anywhere. And baby without radio, you gotta real hard road to hoe. Which, in the case of THIS record is a real cryin' shame. Because a sweeter, slicker, more well crafted batch of songs you hardly ever heard. I pulled this out of a bargain bin on complete chance whim. No review and no "stars" at artistdirect, (but there was very short bio) no customer reviews here, normally, based on that, I would have passed on this. But something made me pick it up. Maybe it was that short bio. But when I heard it I was REALLY SHOCKED at how REALLY GOOD IT was! ...a little short, some 34 minutes, (actually fairly typical for a country artist if you take him as country) But what that really means is he left off the filler where-by most Pop/Rock artist round out their more typical 45-55 minute playing time. Honest to GOD, EVERY SINGLE track is a winner. You play this album from start to finish without ONCE even thinking about reaching for the skip button. Solid as ROCK. Total Ear Candy. If there's one catch it's that, until I read the credits, I assumed he had a woman, (very nice pleasant voice) doing the lead vocals. But unless it's a misprint, no. It's him. It IS positively ERRIE how much he sounds like a woman. If you can get past that, you got 10 nearly perfect alt-county-pop-folk easy listening gems that go down like Southern Comfort on the rocks, from start to finish.... Sound quality/production job is also 5 stars."