She may have been one of American Idol‘s most gifted
vocalists, but the irony is that if 2007 third-place finalist Doolittle
had actually won, she would have been under record-label pressure and
would probably never have made a CD this suited to her talents.
Producer Michael Mangini (Run-DMC, Joss Stone) surrounds her savvy
vocals and old-school soul smarts with live instrumentation and upbeat
horn charts, giving the album a vital human warmth. It’s a good thing,
because Doolittle is the kind of performer who practically inhabits her
material. She wrings every drop of passionate, romantic feeling on the
Sammy Cahn standard “The Best of Everything” and caresses every word of
the gorgeously lush 1955 Doris Day tune (also by Cahn) “I’ll Never Stop
Loving You.” Best of all, she does this while steering clear of
tiresome vocal runs — the surest way to kill a melody. As these
songs reveal, Doolittle is a musical chameleon comfortable mining a
range of styles, whether she’s singing with a gusto that Tina Turner
would envy on the driving “Declaration of Love” (empowered by some
mighty horn blasts) or showing off her grittier blues edge on a pair of
Robert Johnson numbers (“Dust My Broom” and “Walkin’ Blues”). Coming
Back to You is an honest portrait of Doolittle as an artist.
— Tierney Smith
This article appears in Mar 25-31, 2009.
