Album Review: Randy Owen – One On One

For his first solo album, One On One, Randy Owen chose John Rich as producer due to his determination to create something unique and in order to achieve that goal, they approached the project from a personal vantage point. The designer must have gotten that memo because the liner notes contain eight headshots and a two page spread of Owen relaxing in a chair, all appearing to come from the same photo shoot. Unfortunately, it contains its share of typos as well.

Liner notes aside, what does Owen have left to prove by embarking on a solo career? He’s fronted a band that had a string of 21 consecutive chart-topping singles, was named ACM Artist of the Decade in 1989, and Artist of the Century by the RIAA in 1999. Perhaps it’s his admirable dedication to St. Jude and as he says in his new book, Born Country, “For Country Cares alone, I had to stay current with country radio in order to ensure the continued enthusiastic participation of hundreds of country DJs. Audiences are forever changing. Every year country music draws in new, younger listeners. A new audience demands new music, and I felt it was time to deliver some.”

And although he says Alabama isn’t finished recording as a group, he felt he needed his own new direction. Do such goals lead to quality music and is he chasing radio success in order to remain in the public conscious? The answer is that the quality on One On One varies, but nothing really stands out as exceptional, mostly fading into filler status. Furthering the personal theme of the album, Owen had a hand in writing seven of the eleven tracks, but he says he never stopped writing during his hiatus, which makes this collection of songs rather disappointing considering the amount of time he’s had to put material together.

The one track that creates any sort of excitement is “Holding Everything,” a duet with the fetching Megan Mullins who is more than 30 years younger than Owen. Penned by Dolly Parton, it’s one of six songs that run the love-making gamut from “Slow and Steady” to the crimes of passion in the bass heavy “I Confess.”

“Urban’s On The Country Radio,” one of two heartache songs, is a little slice of life as Owen describes his surroundings (Walmart, GNC, a car wash, Domino’s) and features a doozy of a chorus, complete with some sort of digitizing filter, “Oh I want to cry/In stereo/Enhanced by that Aussie audio.”

Continuing with the “urban” trend, if phrases like “holler back” and “roll with me” are an affront to your country sensibilities, “No One Can Love You Anymore” is sure to expand your vocabulary by introducing a new phrase courtesy of the writing team consisting of Owen, Rich, and Vicky McGehee. Besides needing a space between “any” and “more,” the song starts off like so: “There ain’t a man anywhere in the world/That wouldn’t wanna try to steal you girl/Away from me/They could give you material things/Oh like you’ve never seen/Ice you down like a queen.” I’m sure the 57 year old Owen threw that line out there because it was real personal to him.

The remaining songs range from the hope of a little girl with cancer in the first single, “Braid My Hair,” to the heartache of “Like I Never Broke Her Heart,” which is saved by a strong melody and solid lyric, to “Barbados,” a song that surely must have been commissioned by a tourism committee in said country.

It’s not much of a gamble to say the album will appeal to fans of Owen, but as far as winning over that younger audience Owen spoke of–much less those in between–One On One, doesn’t have a lot to offer.