Search - T.G. Sheppard :: 3/4 Lonely

Pop-country balladeer's major breakthrough

Peter Durward Harris | Leicester England | 05/11/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"T G Sheppard's run of success began with Devil in a bottle, a song that nobody else wanted to record. He gradually built on that success, but this album and the singles that came from it really set up his career. Those three singles (You feel good all over, I'll be coming back for more, Last cheater's waltz) all made number one on the country charts, with the last named song inspiring a cover by Emmylou Harris. They are typical of the love songs that T G liked to record. The remainder of this album and the albums that followed are in a somewhat similar vein.



Pick of the remainder is the song that eventually became a country number one hit for T Graham Brown, I wish that I could hurt that way again. It was certainly good enough to have been a single for T G Sheppard, but with three number one singles taken from the album, you can't say that Warner chose wrongly. By the time that those three singes had completed their chart runs, the Smooth sailin' album was ready.



With six other excellent ballads (My ship's coming in, You look like love, I came home to make love to you, You do it to me every time, It's only love, Faster than I could dream), this album set the standard for T G Sheppard's music, a standard that he maintained for several years."