Partners
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand’s Partners isn’t just about star-powered duets, but partnerships of love and family. It’s a love album for the ages, as fit for your anniversary as your parents’ or your child’s wedding.
Streisand sings with a stellar list of partners on her 34th studio album: Andrea Bocelli, Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds (who co-produced), Blake Shelton and Elvis Presley. The new recordings of standards and some of Streisand’s best-known love songs feature her collaborators’ talents perfectly, and every track delivers.
Stevie Wonder’s sweet harmonica warms up their rendition of People. John Mayer and his guitar bring the blues to Come Rain or Come Shine. Michael Buble’s velvet voice matches the big-band charm of It Had to Be You. Bocelli lends drama and grandeur to I Can Still See Your Face. Edmonds adds soul to the classic Evergreen. Hearing Streisand’s inimitable voice alongside Presley’s on an orchestral version of Love Me Tender is magical.
Billy Joel couldn’t have picked a better partner than fellow New Yorker Streisand for his New York State of Mind. Family love shines through on How Deep Is the Ocean, Streisand’s duet with her son, Jason Gould.
Streisand is in fine voice on the album’s 12 tracks, the new arrangements highlighting the timelessness of the 72-year-old’s soaring vocal style.
— Sandy Cohen
Associated Press
Sundown Heaven Town
Tim McGraw
Twenty years after his breakthrough hit, Indian Outlaw, Tim McGraw still pushes at country music’s boundaries. His new album, Sundown Heaven Town, incorporates contemporary Nashville flourishes while holding onto McGraw’s signature sound — a moody, atmospheric tone developed over the years with producer Byron Gallimore.
The album hits several creative peaks, but bogs down with too many forgettable, mid-tempo tunes.
At age 47, McGraw hits home with reflective songs about love and modern life — especially those of a mature Southern man seeking balance between the past and present. His recent hit, Meanwhile Back At Mama’s, a duet with wife Faith Hill, epitomizes his strengths. McGraw’s tempered voice, all restrained emotion, conveys how the anchor of family helps him deal with the pressures of daily life.
His current single, Shotgun Rider, and complicated relationship songs like Sick of Me, show how good McGraw is at real-life situations, buoyed by Gallimore’s atmospheric production. The veteran also offers a welcome surprise with Diamond Rings and Barstools, which brings a contemporary context to old-school country sounds and themes.
But too many hazy sentiments — in City Lights, Looking For That Girl, Keep on Truckin’ — keep the collection from achieving the glowing consistency of McGraw’s best work.
— Michael McCall
Associated Press
The Golem of Hollywood
Jonathan Kellerman and Jesse Kellerman
The first collaboration by father-and-son Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman tries to showcase the best of each author, but, ultimately, is overwritten.
The novel works best when Jonathan Kellerman’s affinity for police procedures and Jesse Kellerman’s use of unusual psychological suspense mesh organically in a hunt for a murderer linked to a Jewish legend.
But too often the plot meanders, relying on unbelievable twists and tiresome flashbacks about the origins of the golem, an artificial human being in Hebrew folklore. The frequent touches of the supernatural further weigh down the novel. And despite the reliance on Jewish culture, The Golem of Hollywood offers few religious insights.
Detective Jacob Lev has been analyzing statistics in the Los Angeles Police Department’s traffic department when he’s reassigned to Special Projects, a squad he didn’t know existed. His first assignment: a severed head has been found in a vacant house. The only clue is the Hebrew word for justice burned into a kitchen counter. The head is that of a serial killer, last seen a year ago near a synagogue in Prague.
Jacob can’t get access to information, his new bosses discourage him from talking to witnesses or following clues, and he confused and frustrated by encounters with a strange beetle. The case solidifies only when he travels to Prague.
While the police procedural moves at a fast clip, the investigation is never as exciting as those that Alex Delaware encounters in Jonathan Kellerman’s series nor as interesting as Jesse Kellerman’s novels. Jewish lore, supernatural events and shady cops are just window dressing to disguise that there is little beyond the curtain.
— Oline H. Cogdill
Associated Press