The easy listening criticism has dogged Alison Krauss for more than twenty years, and she does nothing to dispel it on Windy City, her first solo record since 1999. Her music is thoughtfully poised between the bluegrass she grew up playing as a fiddle prodigy and the jazzy mainstream adult pop popularized by Norah Jones. At least since the O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack made her voice so famous, she has focused more on singing than playing the fiddle. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as Krauss has a bright, soft soprano that at its best blends Dolly Parton’s cheery expressiveness with Willie Nelson’s dexterous phrasing. The downside, however, is that her music, while expertly performed and recorded, is often blanched of any distinguishing twang or genre character. The listening becomes too easy.
As though addressing that criticism directly, Windy City includes a cover of the 1967 crossover hit “Gentle on My Mind,” written by John Hartford but made famous by Glen Campbell. The song lives right at the intersection of pop and country, its lyrics even describing how the music should operate: “You’re movin’ on the back roads by the rivers of my memory/And for hours you’re just gentle on my mind.” Krauss isn’t the first female singer to take a shot at the song—Aretha, Patti Page, and the Band Perry have all recorded versions—but she does unintentionally show just how tricky the song can be. While her voice is perfectly suited to the song’s rosy nostalgia, she can’t quite navigate the narrative twist in the last verse, when the narrator is revealed to be not just a wanderer but literally homeless, haunting trainyards and barrel fires with a coal-dark beard and a dirty hat.
Krauss doesn't conjure that kind of character of setting, but then again, Campbell himself barely could. Still, he knew enough to play up the contrast between the grittiness of the circumstances and the gentleness of the memory. This version is all gentle: technically sharp but emotionally blunted. That’s a problem throughout Windy City, as her pursuit of a viable crossover sound opens up new musical possibilities even as it burnishes away the genre edges of these songs. Working with Nashville producer Buddy Cannon, Krauss displays a broad palette, covering left-of-center choices from the Osborne Brothers and Roger Miller, Brenda Lee and country songwriting legend Cindy Walker. But the arrangements on opener “Losing You” and the title track don’t even bother to evoke the messiness of actual loss. They’re stately and elegant, but also cold and detached.
Windy City sounds liveliest whenever Krauss gets away from crossover pop. She navigates the twisting rhythms of the honky-tonk hit “It’s Good-Bye and So Long To You” with a jazzy agility and actually sounds like she’s having fun with it. Likewise, her version of the bluegrass chestnut “Poison Love” has a calypso pulse that seems to defy gravity. Even “River in the Rain” retains its showtune determinism: If this Roger Miller obscurity, penned for a Huck Finn musical, is the album’s centerpiece, it’s because Krauss keeps it anchored to the stage. She sounds more at home with that kind of theatrical drama than she does with a story-song like the title track or “Gentle on My Mind.”
Windy City is not the best place for newcomers to start with Krauss. The curious should search out the 1995 retrospective Now That I’ve Found You, which features a savvier, more imaginative crossover sound. Windy City never quite reconciles her genre history with her populist ambitions, creating an album that toggles back and forth between the two poles and then ends abruptly. Krauss conveys a stately heartbreak in her closing cover of the Cindy Walker/Eddy Arnold classic “You Don’t Know Me,” striking the ideal balance between elegant countrypolitan backing, eccentric piano and pedal steel flourishes, and vocals that convey both power and personality. It’d be a fine starting point for a follow-up.
