Mark McGuinn Mark McGuinn Release Date: 05.08.2001 VFR Records See the Video for "Mrs. Steven Rudy" 300K 100K 56K He’s a breath of fresh air in a town choking on stale, recirculated ideas. With his debut single, “Mrs. Steven Rudy,” currently sitting in the Top Ten of every major country chart, Mark McGuinn is Music Row’s success story du jour, a slightly offbeat indie artist who seems to have thumbed his nose at the odds. His voice may variously call to mind Ronnie Dunn’s flexed tenor or James Taylor’s playful phrasing, but ultimately McGuinn sounds like no one but himself, remarkably so for a new artist. Probably a lot of this has to do with the fact that he’s already a fully developed songwriter with authorial credit on all but one of the CD’s songs. Do more “Mrs. Steven Rudy”-type hits lie in wait on Mark McGuinn? Let’s hope so. The gods have already proven friendly once, and the album does contain plenty of worthy material. “That’s A Plan” rides a similar banjo-with-drum-loop groove as its protagonist slips the bonds of small-town life: “Gonna hitch my wagon to wandering star/A guy like me can sure get far/With a tank of gas and a credit card.” Romantic ballads like “Heaven Must Be Missing You” and “If The World Was Mine” display a wide-eyed earnestness that nicely counterbalances “Mrs. Steven Rudy”’s cockiness. Jangly guitars propel “All About The Ride” as it delivers a message suggesting that the goal reached is not nearly so rewarding as the reaching itself. The wistful “Love Don’t Float” gives the album its loveliest melodic moment amidst conga slaps and weeping steel guitar. Even in this sad setting McGuinn’s irrepressible hopefulness stands like a pillar. A clever O. Henry twist brings a smile to the edgy “No Way,” a story of a young woman turning her back on family wealth in order to follow her heart. “She Doesn’t Dance” ranks as the most country offering here, a tale of infidelity wherein a man accidentally witnesses his woman behaving with a stranger in ways she’s never behaved with him. The album’s closer, “Done It Right,” sounds like it’s especially close to McGuinn’s own rebel heart, as it proclaims that playing by the rules is exactly what his heroes didn’t do: “What if Columbus gave in and gave up/And Rosa had moved to the back of that bus/And Martin stopped marching and Elvis drove trucks/What if they’d done it right?” It’s interesting to compare Mark McGuinn with rising star keith urban who uses similar melodic and percussive ingredients to create a compelling pop-country stew. But if the brooding urban has become the new prince of cool, McGuinn seems cast as a goateed jester of sorts, a likable optimist with a keen sense of humor who doesn’t take himself too seriously. The kind of guy you might like to have as your next-door neighbor. Hey, just ask Mrs. Steven Rudy. -- Larry Wayne Clark --