The nineties yielded many tribute albums by country artists. I bought several of them, but I avoided this one for many years. No way could I imagine that this album would be for me, until I discovered Amazon and read some of the reviews on the American site. On the basis of some of those reviews, I bought this album and discovered that it is a masterpiece. It is ostensibly a children’s album, but none of the songs are obvious children’s songs. All the songs would comfortably take their place on standard albums by the relevant artists.
It is hard to pick out favorites, but Tanya Tucker is in her element singing Someday my prince will come, while the pairing of Hal Ketchum and Shelby Lynne on If I never knew you is inspired. Faith Hill’s performance on Part of your world is flawless. Bryan White closes the set with a magnificent rendition of When you wish upon a star.
The songs are all from Disney movies. There are two each from Pocahontas and The little mermaid, plus one each from Beauty and the beast, Snow white and the seven dwarfs, Dumbo, Aladdin, Toy story, The lion king and Pinocchio.
This collection caused me to revise my attitude to children’s music. Sure, there is a lot of it that is definitely unappealing to adults, but there are some really great albums out there which will appeal to everybody. This is definitely one of them. Oh – and if you don’t like country, don’t worry. This is a well-crafted album that should appeal to country and non-country fans alike.