Lee Ann Womack ~ Lee Ann Womack ~ Country ~ CD ~ Good

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Lee Ann Womack is a rarity in modern Nashville--an authentic honky-tonk debut album. Producer Mark Wright has refused to bury Womack's small-town, East Texas drawl under the Hollywood soft-rock cloaking that Music Row favors these days. As a result, the young singer's soprano projects an attitude too unsophisticated to hide any emotion. On the first single, "Never Again, Again," you can hear in quivering high notes the dilemma of a woman who keeps breaking her own promise to never take her ex-lover back. Not every song is that sharply focused, and the obligatory boot-scootin' dance numbers and string-smothered ballads dilute the album's impact. But you can hear Womack's potential when she assumes the persona of a hardened waitress explaining the facts of life to an ex-boyfriend in "Montgomery to Memphis." --Geoffrey Himes