The cover tunes open the album on a low note. The Marshall Tucker Band's "Bob Away My Blues" is slicker - more big band - than the original. Waylon Jenning's "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way" now refers to the author instead of Hank Williams and includes a guest rap from Jennings near the end. It tries oh-so-hard to be hip but instead comes across as leisure suit cool. Completely inexplicable is Black's inclusion of "The Galaxy Song" from Monty Python's Meaning Of Life - with harmonies by Eric Idle.

Much, much better are Black's new compositions that follow. "When I Said I Do" is a poignant vow of commitment with surprisingly strong harmonizing by his Hollywood temptress wife, Lisa Hartman. In contrast, Black's acoustic ballads "Where Your Love Won't Go" and "Love She Can't Do Without" deal with unsuccessful relationships, but are just as moving. Wonderfully woven in between these touching odes are the jerky grooves of "Hand In The Fire," as well as "Been There," an infectious uptempo duet with Steve Wariner that'll have your fingers snapping for hours.

The two remakes that conclude the album register a hit and a miss. "Burn One Down" offers an overly peppy melody reminiscent of the theme from The Golden Girls that contradicts its depressing yet defiant subject matter. "No Time To Kill" meanwhile works nicely with its new jazzy setting. Still, Black is a good enough songwriter that he needn't fill out an album with remakes of his old material.

D'lectrified is Clint Black's most frustrating album to date. Enclosed you'll find some of his strongest material ever. Unfortunately, it is surrounded by some of his weakest recordings - none of which are original. Write on Clint (and leave the remakes to Leann Rimes).

Clint is like fine wine .. just keeps getting better
You can tell Clint enjoyed making this album..it has the feel of a man right at home with his craft & boy is it a great listen ...the music is eclectic in the sense that no two songs sound similar and his vocal versatility makes the difficult songs sound easy much in the same way that George Strait can achieve this...this is a great album..some of the best stuff Clint has done..it's smooth & fun and gets better with each listen...in fact having heard all of his previous albums I would have to put this at the top of the list...can't wait for another..

Solid Sound, Great Songs
I've listened to this disc a hundred times now and I still love it. It's the one I bring with me to the music store when listening to new speakers. The recording is excellent, with a wonderfully full rich sound. Hard to believe that none of the instruments are electric. I'd like to see all of Clint's future work done with this style. Clint's voice is fantanstic on this disc. Great to see him producing his own music. The songs are mix of dancible country with some dixieland and not-too-sappy love tunes. Even the Galaxy Song sounds good, I never fast-forward over it. I suppose if you like your country music exclusively to be about drinkin' and cheatin' women then you may not like this.

One other thing, it may sound strange but this disc sounds best played loud. Great for road trips as well!

Excellent acoustic Clint
The title says it all. Clint Black did not use a single electric instrument when making D'lectrified. However, I think Clint came out with an excellent album--and this time he produced the entire record himself.

The initial hit single, "When I Said I Do", is the highlight of this record. Clint's wife, Lisa, sang background vocals on a couple of his earlier hits, "Like The Rain" and "Half Way Up", as she does here. However, on "When I Said I Do", Lisa's voice is almost as powerful as her husband's. Another great song is "Been There", Clint's duet with Steve Wariner. Steve is not only Clint's co-writer and duet partner on "Been There", but he also is the lead guitarist, and he gets in some great licks on the song. Other guest vocalists are Eric Idle on "Galaxy Song", which Idle wrote; Bruce Hornsby on "Dixie Lullaby", on which he also plays piano; Kenny Loggins on "Harmony"; and Waylon Jennings on "Are You Sure Waylon Done It This Way", Clint's remake of Waylon's classic song "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way".

Clint also remade two of his classic hits, "Burn One Down" and "No Time To Kill" for D'lectrified. "Burn One Down", despite being all acoustic like the rest of the songs on the album, is transformed into an uptempo rocker with some nifty saxophone playing by Edgar Winter and a bluesy harmonica solo by Clint. Clint's friend and longtime lead guitarist, Hayden Nicholas, does some clever guitar picking on the updated version of "No Time To Kill", which is decidedly more uptempo than the original. Bruce Hornsby also does some awesome piano work on this one.

These songs are just the highlights of a record that I think is altogether excellent. Clint Black has been making great music ever since 1989. On D'lectrified, he gives us more reasons to like what he's done.
The best and worst you can say about Clint Black's debut as his own producer is, it's an ambitious, often enjoyable exercise in self-indulgence. D'lectrified is a sprawling, 14-cut mishmash featuring guest appearances by everyone from Kenny Loggins and Bruce Hornsby to Eric Idle (on a clever, spaced-out rendition of Monty Python's "The Galaxy Song") and Black's wife, actress Lisa Hartman Black. Black's penchant for blues and Dixieland-style horn arrangements serves him well on remakes of gems like the Marshall Tucker Band's "Bob Away My Blues" and Leon Russell's "Dixie Lullaby" (where Hornsby gets a fine workout on the ivories). And Black does what he does best on smooth country ballads like "Been There" (a great duet with Steve Wariner) and "Where Your Love Won't Go." On the other hand, his aimless, tepid remake of Waylon Jennings's "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?" (featuring a goofy vocal cameo from Jennings) is little more than a waste of space. Not much more can be said of Black's almost unrecognizable "rethinks" of a pair of his own previous hits, "No Time to Kill" and "Burn One Down." On top of that, D'lectrified has some pointless instrumental breaks throughout that meander everywhere without really going anywhere. --Bob Allen