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Feb. 7, 2002 Robin and Linda Williams Visions Of Love Sugar Hill Records Folkies Robin and Linda Williams, longtime regulars on Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion radio show, have again teamed up with the programs illustrious host, this time to make one of the most engaging albums of their career. With Keillor producing and suggesting much of the classic country repertoire (Hank Williams, the Louvin Brothers, and Merle Haggard, for example), the Williamses run the emotional gamut of love here--from romantic, to maternal, to spiritual, and even to patriotic. Spare production and exceptional song selection add to the timelessness of the collection, but in places, Linda's understated elegance seems too civilized and pretty for such hard-edged themes as infidelity ("Your're Running Wild") and marital bed death ("After the Fire Is Gone"). Yet the husband and wife team redeem themselves over and over, most notably with covers of Hank's "Ramblin' Man," rendered as spooky as a siren of death, and Bruce Springsteen's "If I Should Fall Behind," an astonishing song of unending devotion. Go ahead--give this to someone you love.
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