Tammy Cochran

by Tammy Cochran

Overview

Take a little Jo Dee Messina sass and some Lee Ann Womack heart, and you get where Tammy Cochran's coming from. Her impressive debut album finds her equally at home spittin' in your eye on a rocking, celebratory breakup song, "So What," and then tenderly exploring a country torch number, "What I Learned from Loving You." Sherrie Austin's "Going, Going, Gone," a manifesto about a faithless lover, gets a dramatic country-pop treatment that allows for some impressive vocal pyrotechnics on Cochran's part, and there more of that to come. Saving the best for last, Cochran delivers "Angels in Waiting," a stirring, buoyant tribute to brothers who died young, punctuated by the forthright vow, "I'll give them life/I'll let them live through me." Cochran, who co-wrote the song, sings from the heart, making these potentially maudlin lines ring true with a perfectly modulated vocal that melds bluesy wistfulness to sunny pop optimism. It all adds up to an auspicious beginning.

Product Details

Release Date:	05/01/2001
Label:	Sony
UPC:	0074646973622
catalogNumber:	69736
Rank:	97391

Tracks

1. I Cry
2. If You Can
3. So What
4. What I Learned from Loving You
5. That Ain't Right
6. Say Goodbye
7. When Love Was Enough
8. Going, Going, Gone
9. Better off Broken
10. Angels in Waiting

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Tammy Cochran   Primary Artist,Vocals
Glen Duncan   Fiddle,Mandolin
Joe Chemay   Background Vocals
Richard Bennett   Acoustic Guitar
Dan Dugmore   Electric Guitar,Steel Guitar
Carl Gorodetzky   Violin
David Grissom   Electric Guitar
Jim Grosjean   Viola
John Jarvis   Keyboards
Lee Larrison   Violin
Paul Leim   Percussion,Drums
Anthony Martin   Background Vocals
Steve Nathan   Keyboards
Cindy Richardson   Background Vocals
Lisa Silver   Background Vocals
Harry Stinson   Background Vocals
Biff Watson   Acoustic Guitar
Bergen White   Conductor

Technical Credits

Howard Smith   Composer
Blake Chancey   Producer
Jim Cotton   Engineer
Steve Marcantonio   Engineer
George Massenburg   Engineer
Billy Sherrill   Engineer
Bergen White   Arranger
Rollow Welch   Art Direction
Beth Kindig   Art Direction
Tom Castle   Engineer
Tammy Cochran   Liner Notes
J. H. Brown   Composer

Editorial Reviews

Tammy Cochran kicked around Nashville for almost a decade before she gained a hearing on Music Row, which says more about the goals of the country music establishment in the 1990s than it does about her. Cochran is a heartthrob singer in the tradition of Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette, which is not what Nashville was looking for in the Garth Brooks crossover days of the '90s, and not even what much of Nashville has been looking for in the Faith Hill crossover days of the '00s. But Sony producer Blake Chancey has been bucking that trend with the Dixie Chicks, among others, and he finally gave Cochran her chance with the May 2000 single "If You Can." Chancey understood that Cochran's strength was ballads, and though "If You Can" wasn't a hit, it displayed her talent well. Her debut album seems to have been delayed several times, until a second single, "So What," released in October 2000, got some traction. It fulfills the promise of those songs by sticking mostly with ballads, on which Cochran emotes most effectively. It's not that she can't handle up-tempo material such as "Better Off Broken" and her own co-composition "When Love Was Enough," it's that she isn't able to put as personal a stamp on those songs, which sound like they could be by any competent female vocalist. But when she gets hold of a slow one with a bitterly romantic edge like "Say Goodbye," she reminds you of generations of great country women. Tammy Cochran may be too country for country radio (it always feels funny to say that), but it should attract fans of dyed-in-the-wool country who have been waiting for an artist not so concerned with crossing over to the pop charts.

All Music Guide - William Ruhlmann