Shawn Camp - Lucky Silver Dollar (CD)

All Music Guide

Shawn Camp's career as a country singer was derailed in 1994 when Reprise Records rejected his second album and dropped him. Happily, he was able to pick himself up and become a successful songwriter, scoring number one hits in 1998 with Garth Brooks' "Two Piña Coladas" and Brooks Dunn's "How Long Gone." Conventional wisdom would suggest that his self-released disc, Lucky Silver Dollar, would be a glorified publishing demo, except that a guy with his success probably doesn't need to be passing his CD to potential clients. Rather, the album seems designed to demonstrate that Camp still has potential as a performer. He has gotten Allen Reynolds and Mark Miller, Garth Brooks' producers, to handle the board, which is pretty high-voltage help for a vanity release. But his performances justify the effort. Unlike a lot of Nashville's writers, he's a good singer with an elastic tenor and, having co-written all the material, he has a good interpretative handle on it. Still, it's that material ...that makes Lucky Silver Dollar a success. Good songs are always at a premium in Nashville, and it's hard to believe some of these titles (the ones that haven't already been cut by Tracy Byrd, John Anderson, or Brooks Dunn) haven't been put on hold or on record by major stars. There are more strong ballads by Camp and John Scott Sherrill where "How Long Gone" came from (the Jimmy Buffett-styled "Middle of Nowhere" and "Lost at Sea"), a terrific Cajun story-song ("Tune of the Twenty Dollar Bill"), and a song Hank Williams could sing if he were around to do so ("Walkin' the Line," cut by Byrd in 1998). These compositions are a cut above what you usually hear on a country album, and Camp deserves to be back on a major label. - William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide Read more Less