CD Reviews

Blaine Larson

Rockin' You Tonight | BMG

By WERNER TRIESCHMANN | January 22, 2007

2.5 Stars

By the ripe old age of 20, Blaine Larsen had graduated from his Tacoma (Washington) high school and released two full-length country albums. The latest has him carrying on his Music Row forefathers’ habit of never letting a year pass without putting out an album or three. And like those forefathers, he’s a stone-cold pro, as Rockin’ You Tonight makes clear. Equipped with a silky baritone, guitar skills, and a deft sense of humor, he can elevate even suspect material. The highlight here is his searing cover of Mac Davis’s 1972 hit “Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me,” a song about an older man pushing away a “hot-blooded woman child”; given his own age, it’s a nice choice. Sure, like most Nashville records, this one has filler stuffed in among the keepers. You can count on more of both when, surely, another Larsen album arrives later this year.

Related: Country hero, Live To Tell, Singin’ the trues, More

Topics: CD Reviews , Entertainment, Music, Country Music, More

| More

view all

[ 02/17 ] Bob Marley @ Landing At Pine Point

[ 02/17 ] Brzowski + Lady Essence + Icebox @ 131 Washington

[ 02/17 ] Farren-Butcher, Inc. + Jonny Lang @ State Theatre

More Information

Blaine Larsen, Songs from Rockin' You Tonight

ARTICLES BY WERNER TRIESCHMANN

THE WHIGS: MISSION CONTROL | March 05, 2008
The Whigs began life as a guitar/bass/drums college band toiling away in Athens.

REBA MCENTIRE | February 12, 2008
Reba McEntire became famous in the 1980s, when country music consisted of ballads as big as the hair of the singers who sang them.

SIDESHOW AND TELL | January 28, 2008
She goes by the name Baby Dee, even though she was born in Cleveland in 1953.

LITTLE BIG TOWN | December 31, 2007
Although you may wish that the first single wasn’t about life on the road, even it is soaked in a sweetness that’s too rare these days.

KENNY CHESNEY | December 03, 2007
Chesney has built his sizeable country empire on selling Jimmy Buffett–like beach fantasies with guitar-fueled mid-tempo frat rock.