The Hard Way CD Review

Performance 9, sound quality 7.

IS CHRISTINE OHLMAN A BIG STAR YET? No, but she sure oughta be. She's best known as the bleached blonde beehive singer with the Saturday Night Live band and on this, her long overdue debut album, she steps up to the plate and delivers a true home run. Like the R&B icons from whom she learned her stuff, Ohlman writes and sings about love, love, love; bad and good, sweet and sour, and reveling in every hot sweaty moment of it. There's a distinctly female point of view to this record without putting the menfolks at arms' length and therein lies much of Christine's appeal; she's sexy without being threatening.

Everything on The Hard Way works simply because this is a guitar driven rock'n'roll albim with a big ol' heart. You can hit shuffle play and come up with a winner every time, but mafor highliights include the seductive slip'n'slide of "Sugar Melts," the confident ballad "The Edge Of The World," the radio-ready hit "A Shot Of You," one of the best versions of The Troggs' "Love Is All Around" and "Then God Created Woman," where Ohlman spits out the hook like Tina Turner fronting the Rolling Stone, making it the epic moment of the album and a rockin' delight. If rootsy, shrieky femme singer albums loaded with tired retreads of old soul material have got you down, here's where you go for a much needed lift. It is now time to get hip to Christine Ohlman: musical treasures like this don't come along very often.

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