On Your Way Home Album Review

After a little detour through some Mountain Soul along with the excursion to a Bluegrass White Snow Christmas, where she takes a satisfying and sentimental journey to explore her heritage on both exquisite CDs. Patty makes her anticipated return to the mainstream of country once more and UNLEASHES upon the world (or at least here in the U. S.) On Your Way Home, her 13th studio album of original material. If you include both Greatest Hits packages then the tally is 15, but hey who is counting the number of albums? Tell me truthfully, how many of the artists you see on VH... I mean CMT today will be able to look back over an 18 year career. A career that consists of no less than, 15 albums, 12 top twenty singles, 17 top ten's and 6 number ones.  Then there are the awards, CMA's Vocal Event of the Year in 1998 - 1999, Female Vocalist of the Year in 1996, Album of the Year in 1995. Which by the way made Patty only the second female artist to win this, and of course the back to back wins of the ACM's Female Vocalist of the Year in 1996 - 1997. Once again history was made when Patty became only the third female to win back to back. We must not forget the 29 various nominations that extend across the Grammy's, CMA's and ACM's through the years. Disclaimer: I had to take off my shoes to count so the accuracy might be slightly askew by a toe or two.

The release of On Your Way Home brings Patty full circle in a career that has seen her dabble in different genres of music. From pop, rock, blues, bluegrass, and of course traditional country, Patty has blissfully settled on the more countrified side of the fence with this release.

How more country can you get than the invigorating opening track Draggin' My Heart Around in which Patty conjures up  the sounds of country legends past. When listening to the lyrics and her vocal nuances Patty reincarnates Hank Williams, who I believe would have recorded even written this tune. Listen to her invoke the traditional inflections when singing the verses "never leave me lonesome," or "you go out honky tonking."  You can hear the forlorn or in her voice with the lyrics "I believe I'm slowly sinking, I believe I'm going down, it's bound to be the death of me, if you keep draggin' my heart around."

Nothing Like The Lonely begins with a mellifluousness hum and a drum that eventually blends the fiddle, mandolin and banjo in a song that expounds on the loneliness and emptiness in ones heart. Patty's phrasing "it might come close, but not quite," gives that line the best hook in the song, followed by the metaphorically challenged line "if the sky lost their stars and the stars lost their light, it'd be nothing like the lonely in my heart tonight," which might come close, but not quite in describing the loneliness she feels.

I Wanna Believe is an energetic song, about a man's worst possible scenario come true, the woman he is cheating on meets the other women he is cheating on her with. For some reason the supermarket checkout line seems an appropriate place for that to happen. Two of the best moments in this song, the heights to which Patty's vocals reach, and the line "your lips are moving, so I know you're lying." I think that is a line to be used on the monkeys when they try to scam me about homework.

On Your Way Home, the song Sony originally put out as the first single, then pulled in favor of Lovin' All Night will sit high on the list of exceptional songs recorded by Patty. Just a few of the highlights, Patty's hang time through several verses, along with striking the perfect pitch inside those lyrics. Then the guitar after the first chorus which pierces the song as if a knife was plunged into the heart. Finally the tears that drip from Patty's voice throughout the song confronting the painful reality of a cheating husband. This was not a song to kick off the album, but maybe one to close out the albums run on radio.

The first of two clinkers for me on this album finally arrives after a great run on side one. Closing out the first side is I Don't Wanna Be That Strong and something about this song just strikes the wrong note with me. I listen and listen but still it leaves me with the same feeling of being over done, and a bit on the schmaltzy side for my taste. Lord I can see the hate mail flying through cyberspace now, but just remember not everyone will like every song, and I never said she sucked or the song sucked. This is not one of those songs that just grabbed me like it did Jess, who by the way loved it the first time she gave a listen.

Side two opens with one of those great sounding country songs, Born-Again Fool. The lyrics, the lonesome sound of the fiddles, Patty's vocal delivery render this a country classic if possible for a song not destined for radio. Not much more can be said, no need to flourish on about this song, it just works all the way around.

If Patty was on the prowl then Lookin' For A Heartache is the song she would be singing. A fun lighthearted tune that does several things, it makes the word 'bubble' fun to pronounce, or want your own bubble and wonder, does Patty have feet in her pajamas. The steel adds a nice swing to his song and Patty's delivery is as breezy as the song itself.

The final misstep on the album comes in Higher Than The Wall, so instead of repeating myself just read the reasons under I Don't Wanna Be That Strong, and apply them here.

Lovin' All Night brings Patty to the other end of the spectrum once more with this romp of a tune about well, Lovin' All Night. This is the song the new regime at Sony decided would be the next single replacing On Your Way Home. Hey, maybe this is what happens after she gets that heartache she has been looking for in her bubble. A bouncy tune that is putting Patty back up on the charts after a several year dry spell.

Last In A Long Lonesome Line is another one of those great sounding country songs that not only does she twang it hard, but has a great line, " they say the blood in my body is aging like wine." Country to the bone is what we have here, and we as a nation are the better for it.

Finally, what Patty Loveless album would not be complete without her closing DEATH song, and The Grandpa That I Know fills the bill this time around. Normally I really hate those death songs, but this time she did it right for me. She hits a note in this song that makes the furry creatures in my house stand up and say "wow! I swear she jumps an octave and a half, plus the facts that these are some beautiful lyrics, and they bring back memories of loved ones I have lost. For once death and dying is a bit easier to take.

On Your Way Home erases whatever painful memories I have that still linger from her last mainstream album, Strong Heart. Patty sounds better than ever, as she covers the emotional spectrum from one end to the other, and she sounds like she is having a blast doing this album. Whatever shackles and chains she may have had previously in doing an almost pure country album are gone, and she cuts loose soaring once again to her place in the pantheon of country music greats.