You can't fool all the people all the time; the mainstream country audience will only sit still for so many prefabricated hat acts before they instinctively flock to the real thing. Kevin Fowler had never been a major-label star-groomed "personality" when he released his fourth album, LOOSE, LOUD & CRAZY, but that didn't stop fans from pushing him all the way to crossover status. Fowler's regular-guy voice, good-natured honky-tonk songs, and down-home delivery aren't part of some marketing scheme, they're the bona fide article. He's obviously got deep roots; "Get Along" is dripping with Western Swing flavor, and "Triple Crown" is indebted to George Jones's classic "The Race Is On." Nevertheless, Fowler makes no attempts at sounding self-consciously retro, he simply gives his all on a batch of often humor-filled barroom tunes that owe a debt to the names he drops in the broad double-entendre "Don't Touch My Willie" (Jones, Merle Haggard, et al). Eschewing rock-friendly power ballads and cheesy production touches, Fowler makes contemporary country music fun again with LOOSE, LOUD & CRAZY.