To walk the road of hard love

And sing a song of grace;

To take what is given us

Just to fit in the space.

In "Sundown" Waldman finds release in a powerful voice and a wide octave range reminiscent of Laura Nyro's throaty songs. It's almost as if her own voice were going down over the Pacific, getting big and red, sending its rays across the waves and sparking the water itself into a "wintertime sundown fire." But you wish that the sun would help her when she asks it to "carry my spirit just another time 'round" because the album begins to fizzle out at the end to the first side.

Waldman's three most powerful songs aren't packed with lyrics, but they all make you want to hear more. When she does add more lines her music seems to deteriorate. "Spring is Here" demonstrates her abilities on the dulcimer, but the line, "I know that God must be smilin" 'is just too much to hear nine times in a single song; it sounds like a mispronounced Hare Krishna chant. Both "Secret" and "Listen to Your Own Heart" are extended bitches with appropriately annoying bass rhythms that pound the songs into the ground. "Wild Bird" is the only decent cut on the second side.

Still, if Wendy Waldman can find that effervescence that appears to be so strong in some of her songs and if she can add a little more yeast to her voice and to her sentiment then all that's needed is some aging before she can replace the queen who sang of "stroking the star maker machinery behind the popular song."