Doin' Somethin' Right

by Stephen Thomas ErlewineBilly Currington was helped enormously by his duet with Shania Twain on "Party for Two," a new track on her 2004 Greatest Hits album. She had two versions of the song on the record -- one cut with Sugar Ray's Mark McGrath for the pop audience, the version with Currington for country fans, and it's not entirely a stretch to say that Currington is a country McGrath: good-looking, likeable, entirely comfortable with selling out so he can reach as big of an audience possible, yet kind of ingratiating because he's not only charming, he's good at it. And his second album, Doin' Something Right proves this: while it doesn't take any chances, it's a thoroughly entertaining and satisfying contemporary country album. Despite his protestations that he wants to be a hillbilly on the rocking, twangy opening cut, Currington has as strong a foundation in pop as he does in country. He not only gets a nicely mellow, relaxed Californian vibe on the title track, but he collaborates with Michael McDonald on "She's Got a Way with Me," a song that could have fit comfortably onto soft rock stations in the early '80s, when McDonald provided his signature gruff, soulful harmonies on every other track. Currington also covers Kenny Rogers' hit "Lucille," but he does a neat trick with it, one that illustrates why this album is so enjoyable: he does a harder country version than Rogers, proving that he can pull off both lighter pop and straight-ahead country with one performance. The rest of the record goes back and forth between these two extremes -- sometimes subtlety, sometimes not -- and Currington comes across like a blend of Kenny Chesney, Shania Twain, and Alan Jackson: he has the good looks and frat-boy sensibility of Chesney and the pop sense and common touch of Shania, but it's tempered by a touch of the neo-traditional twang of Jackson. The end is a cheerfully commercial country album, but one with muscle and heart, one that's as enjoyable when it's laid-back as when it rocks out. It's an excellent second album and one that should make Currington a star.