Cathy Ponton King's "Lovin' You Right" was originally released way back in 1992. The timing was pretty good, because friend Jim Thackery was between bands, and thus found time to contribute both musically and on the production side.
The album opens with a 12-bar ("Sad and Lonely") which shows Ponton King to have a good powerful voice. It also features some fine sax from Joe Stanley, and some neat guitar from Jim Thackery (as you would expect). Things get more soulful on the ensuing "You Got Me Singing," a cover of an Eddie Hinton tune. There is a much lighter feel here, with keyboard player Tom Lepson helping out on vocals.
The size of the band varies throughout, with the core 4-piece only being used on a couple of tracks. The first of these, "Gettin' You" features some nice twangy guitar (courtesy of Thackery). The other is the more jazzy "Why So Serious?". Thackery also uses the twangy guitar sound to great effect on the fast paced romp that is "Tell Me What I Want To Hear" which gets close to rockabilly territory.
The main highlight of the album, however, is "Lovin' You Right." Thackery is in particularly fine form on this one. Ponton King manages to find the right blend of emotions for a song that appears to draw inspiration from "Take Me The River" and "The Wind Cries Mary." Special mention should also be made of "Move A Lot" which features Jerry Portnoy on chromatic harp, before the album closes out nicely with the "Change My Way of Livin'."
"Lovin' You Right" is a pretty good album which shows off Cathy Ponton King's talents as a vocalist and a songwriter. She has a good voice which is powerful enough to carry off the more rock oriented material. The use of Jimmy Thackery on guitar is an added bonus, and lends extra class to the proceedings.
www.zptduda.com/cpk
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