Shine

Although Mary Black's solo career has been consistently successful in commercial terms, by the time she was due to deliver this her 1997 album, critics were beginning to discern a creeping blandness about her work. Perhaps she had this in mind when she turned to bass-playing producer Larry Klein. SHINE was certainly a departure for Black, being most definitely a rock album rather than another folk-influenced offering.
Indeed, the stripped-down ensemble sound-guitar, bass, and drums augmented by occasional mandolin, Hammond organ, and pedal steel-is at times reminiscent of Klein's work with his ex-wife Joni Mitchell. If the material itself rarely comes close to matching Mitchell's in quality (whose does?), there is the compensation of one outstanding song, Amy Kanter's "Beautiful", plus another of Black's periodic dips into the Richard Thompson songbook for a cover of "I Misunderstood", laced with dramatic baritone guitar.|