Michael Bolton cloned his approach from
Soul Provider on its follow-up, Time, Love & Tenderness, and sold as many records for his trouble. (That's six million copies.) His key collaborator once again was
Diane Warren, who applied her goldplated gift for writing contemporary love songs to six tunes, among them the hits "Time, Love & Tenderness" and "Missing You Now" (which featured saxmeister
Kenny G). The obligatory R&B carbon copy was
Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman," which hit number one. The only unusual songs came at the beginning and the end. The album led off with "Love Is a Wonderful Thing" (a Top Ten hit), a song in standard '60s R&B mode that would be the subject of a plagiarism suit from
the Isley Brothers, and it concluded with "Steel Bars," co-written by
Bolton and...
Bob Dylan? That's what it said, and if the song wasn't one of
Dylan's best, it at least indicated that
Bolton might have possibilities that had so far gone unnoticed. ~ William Ruhlmann