Album Reviews
Rosie Flores 'Dance Hall Dreams' showcases her tasteful guitar
* 03/26/99
Chicago Daily Herald
(Copyright 1999)
Rosie Flores, "Dance Hall Dreams" (Rounder)
* * *
Somehow,
while the New Traditionalist movement launched the careers of Dwight
* Yoakam, Lyle Lovett, k.d. lang and Steve Earle, the fame train never
let Rosie Flores aboard.
That's a shame because the honky tonk queen has it all over the
Nashville pinup girls on the charts these days.
Not only does Flores write her own material - she wrote or co-
wrote 11 of the 12 songs here - but she is also a first-rate
guitarist. (Now how many of TNN's video vixens can say that!) Her
tasteful guitar licks burn and her twangy voice sounds half as young
as her 48 years, while her roots spirit recalls western swing and Sun
Records.
A few numbers too low key for their own good prevent "Dance Hall
Dreams" from matching her best works, "A Honky Tonk Reprise" and
"Once More With Feeling." But the album finishes with a flurry and
shows why the "Rockabilly Filly" deserves to be more than a hep-cat
secret.
Flores sings about a pink Cadillac and playfully suggests "Why
don't you come inside and hear my engine run?" in " '59 Tweedle
Dee." "This Ol' Honky Tonk" is a traditional, heartfelt ode. The
smart rave-up about Elvis, "It Came From Memphis," features a guitar
line from John Lee Hooker's "Boogie Chillun" filtered through ZZ
Top's "La Grange" and also pays tribute to Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee
Lewis, Sonny Burgess, Scotty Moore, Johnny Cash and Charlie Rich.
The album ends on a mysterious note when the honkey tonk hymn "Dance
Hall Dreams" abruptly ends, as if Flores awakes from a dream.
A dream would be for Flores to plug in, crank it up and conjure
country's spirited past with a rousing, full-fledged guitar album.
- Dave Miller
