Janice Robinson - Color Within Me (CD)

All Music Guide

Perhaps because she played with various groups for years before making her mark in Europe with Livin' Joy's "Dreamer" in 1994-95, Janice Robinson is not your standard RB singer. In fact, it would be more accurate to think of her as a rock singer-songwriter. She has assembled a backup band that includes rock veterans like Jim Keltner and Waddy Wachtel and even gotten a wonderful slide guitar performance from Ry Cooder on "Sleeping In The Playground." "Nothing I Would Change" is the autobiographical statement that leads things off, and Robinson remains self-referential in her lyrics. She doesn't really have much to say beyond telling her own, brief story, but she is passionate about that, from the bittersweet hometown reunion of "Dead End Girl" to the memory of racial slurs in "Gracefully Gliding." "Who cares if I'm black or white," she asks on the title track, and she explores miscegenation with an integrationist's fervor in the album closer, "It Really Don't Matter." Those are nervy se...ntiments at a time when popular music remains as polarized as society at large, and they may make her album difficult to market. But this is an auspicious debut by a talented singer who is also a promising writer. - William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide Read more Less