New Moves

by Thom Jurek In between MCA and RCA, Don Williams spent a few minutes at Capitol Records, where he, Garth Fundis, and the band put together a new collection of songs that had the most radical sounds for Williams on it. New Moves is Williams moving more consciously into a more pop-directed sound. In 1986 country was coming out of its most confused period. The new traditionalists were making waves led by Dwight Yoakam's razor-sharp return-to-Bakersfield charge and anchored by George Strait and Randy Travis. Garth what's-his-name (you know, the guy who wears department-store-bought curtains for shirts) was barely a blip on the screen at that moment. Williams, who had always been a mostly traditional country singer, decided it might be the time to investigate pop. While his sound is not radically different, there are some lovely highlights added to Williams' normally sparse yet elegant arrangements -- a soulful horn section complete with saxophone solo and soul-styled bass riffing on the opener, "Heartbeat in the Darkness," which proved to be a big single. But experiment is all it was, because Williams remained a firmly committed country singer, as tracks like Bob McDill's "Shot Full of Love" and "We Got Love" attest to. Pat McLaughlin's hoedown jumper "Send Her Roses" is about the closest Williams had come to honky tonk since he began his career, and there is also the mariachi-flavored "Senorita" and Williams' own stunner, "The Light in Your Eyes," a love ballad so fraught with emotion and genuine tenderness it's amazing it could be captured in a recording studio. With a lilting viola and floating pedal steel sidling up next to a spare dobro and acoustic guitar, Williams comes shining through in the verses and is followed by a piano immediately after laying single notes and simple chords as texture. And then it happens: Williams sings a genuine -- if modern -- honky tonk tune that could have been recorded by Jerry Jeff Walker in Dennis Linde's "Then It's Love." These were new moves indeed, and though some critics had a tough time with them, the public loved the album and its singles.