Steve Wariner Displays Versatility In New Cd

This month a Nashville nice-guy follows his career’s biggest success, a young diva-to-be carves her own niche, an old outlaw comes in from the cold and a honky tonk favorite redoes his thing.

Steve Wariner “Two Teardrops” (Capitol) ***-1/2

The multiaward-winning “Holes in the Floor of Heaven” was almost too big a hit for Wariner to get past - radio stations wanted to just keep playing it rather than any newer Wariner fare - but more time has passed now, and Wariner has brought in heavy replacements.

Offering the listener 15 new tracks for the regular price of a CD, he presents a diverse collection of music displaying his panoramic musical eclecticism and including at least five selections that should get him past “Holes.”

The first of the five is the title song and first single, a brilliantly conceived big ballad about the way happiness and sadness are joined together in the human experience. The second is the CD’s introductory track, “Hands of Time,” which describes the universal compulsion to keep up with life’s quickening pace.

Then there’s the wonderfully hard country “Tattoos of Life,” which says that sooner or later life marks you. “Talk to Her Heart,” a duet with Bryan White, advises men that even in the ‘90s the new, no-nonsense woman is still best reached by sensitivity; the contrast between Wariner’s adult sound and White’s teen-ish one can be a little jarring, but it should draw attention.

Finally, there’s the one song on the entire CD that Wariner didn’t write or co-write: “For the First Time,” a distinctive I’ve-always-known-you-but-never-really-sawyou-before kind of love song that should especially appeal to females. And it all ends with a hot little piece of Wariner guitar picking.

A tour de force.

Mandy Barnett “I’ve Got a Right to Cry” (Sire) ****

Part of the reason this effort gets such a resounding “A” is its guts.

Barnett may be a very young woman, just 23, but she obviously has an old soul and the gifts of an accomplished master. Barnett is a torch singer, plain and simple, and the torch is hot.

Her first album, recorded at age 19, was one in which Asylum Records understandably tried to compromise her approach to guide it toward mainstream country airplay. But Barnett isn’t much for compromise, and here - under the direction and inspiration of the late great producer Owen Bradley - she goes for it. She does everything from old-style hard country music (a Porter Wagoner song) to oldstyle pop (the title tune) to vintage country that was decades ahead of its time (a couple of Don Gibson covers).

There are 12 tracks here, and the final one - Boudleaux and Felice Bryant’s “Don’t Forget to Cry” - is itself worth the price of the whole thing. Bravo, Barnett.

David Allan Coe “Recommended For Airplay” (Lucky Dog) ***-1/2

You’re thinking, “Is this title a joke?”

The answer is no. Finally, on the threshold of his 60th birthday, there emerges a kinder, gentler version of the flamboyant, hard-bitten, outrageous Outlaw. Here he sings about responsible drinking, giving his car keys to the bartender. He sings with moving regret, instead of the old wry hate, about a woman lost. He sings about a guy pretending to be a biker, and then concedes that in the beginning every biker basically does the same thing.

But don’t get the idea that Coe has had his manhood or his interest removed; neither of those things is possible. The CD’s opening track “Song for the Year 2000” indicates that it takes all kinds of people to make the world. And Coe describes three eye-catching ones: a closet cross-dressing male, a black guy named Michael who has been taking hormone replacements because he doesn’t want to be black, and a flat-chested young lady named Stella who buys some “silly cone” and now finds no guy will leave her alone.

It’s refreshing to hear Coe mellowing. More or less.

Joe Diffie “A Night To Remember” (Epic) ***

For several years now, Joe Diffie has been one of mainstream country’s quintessential honky-tonk singers. A purveyor of supple, adept, inspired vocals and hooky lyrics, all of Diffie’s talents are used on glib titles like “My Heart’s in Over My Head” and “I’m The Only Thing I’ll Hold Against You.”

This collection, of which those two titles constitute a sample, is co-produced by a different producer, Don Cook, who adds some peppery tempo and fiery instrumentation from time to time, but this does not depart from Diffie’s usual tastes. In fact, it may even come a little closer to honing them, since four of these 10 (including “I’m the Only Thing…” and “My Heart’s in Over…”) were co-written by the singer.

The title song and another Diffie co-composition, “You Can’t Go Home,” are particularly effective.