Album review: Alison Krauss’s Windy City is a classic country collection

Windy City

Alison Krauss

(Capitol)

Three stars

When it comes to selecting songs, Alison Krauss's aim is true. Windy City is classic country, with most of the tunes older than their 45-year-old singer.

Krauss draws on familiar material previously performed by Ray Charles, Willie Nelson and Brenda Lee, and the arrangements are as wide-ranging as the songs’ sources. There’s weepy pedal steel, Tex-Mex guitar, a burst of Dixieland horns, tuba and a string orchestra.

Out front is her angelic soprano, which rises to the occasion throughout, and not just when she climbs the scale with a goose-bumps-inducing crescendo on the Osborne Brothers' It's Goodbye and So Long to You. Even the length of the set is classic country – 10 songs, 35 minutes.

That's the only quibble with Windy City: it's too lean for its own good.

* AP