Real Live Woman

1	Where Are You Now 3:10
2	One Love 4:25
3	Sad Eyes 4:10
4	Some Days 3:51
5	I Did 3:53
6	Try Me Again 4:28
7	Too Bad You're No Good 3:50
8	Real Live Woman 3:55
9	I'm Still Alive 4:03
10	Wild for You Baby 4:32
11	Come Back When It Ain't Rainin' 3:14
12	When a Love Song Sings the Blues 4:27

Barnes & Noble

A triumph of interpretive singing, REAL LIVE WOMAN finds Trisha Yearwood leaving her generation of country singers in the dust. As always, her song selection is impeccable. Bruce Springsteen, Kim Richey, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Harlan Howard, and Matraca Berg (who cowrote three songs here) lead the all-star songwriter lineup. The big news is what Yearwood does with their songs. All the confusion, hurt, and turmoil of a year upended by divorce and a management change goes into these emotionally charged readings. Whether it's the triumphant sentiments of the title song or the unsettling introspection of the album closer, "When A Love Song Sings the Blues," REAL LIVE WOMAN reveals the artist in all her vulnerability. Out of her pain, Yearwood delivers a beautiful, haunting masterpiece -- an album that brooks comparison with classic pop monuments such as Rosemary Clooney's LOVE and Frank Sinatra's ONLY THE LONELY. This is a moment to savor. David McGee

All Music Guide

Once an artist like Trisha Yearwood enters her second decade of recording, it's easy to take her for granted. Why? Well, consistency doesn't make for quite as dramatic a story as dramatic swings between brilliance and failure. That may be unfair, but that's the way it is. Yearwood has never swung between such extremes. She has released some exceptional albums, plus a couple of sub-par efforts, but for the most part, she has remained an artist that is reliable -- you pay your money, and you know you'll get something satisfactory. Real Live Woman is one of those records; it may not rock your world, but it will hardly disappoint. A little more mature and straight-ahead than even her latter-day efforts, Real Live Woman is a measured, deliberate record in the best possible sense. The tempo never gets too heated, but the songs never drift into laziness, either. The tunes are always melodic and always well-chosen. They don't just play to Yearwood's strengths, but they're solid songs in their own right, whether it's a new Matraca Berg and Al Anderson song ("I'm Still Alive"), an overlooked Springsteen tune ("Sad Eyes") or a Linda Ronstadt chestnut ("Try Me Again"). Yes, there are a couple of moments where the momentum drags ever so slightly, but as soon as they occur, the album perks back up with the next song. Real Live Woman isn't significantly better or worse than the average Trisha Yearwood album, but that's not a bad thing, since few people do this mainstream country -- meaning, by late-'90s/early-'00s standards, country music that still sounds country but is also melodic enough for pop -- quite as well as this. Stephen Thomas Erlewine