Oslin built this loosely defined concept album from 10 years of song, including the first one she wrote.
Oslin sings of the guises romance wears in the small-town South: Nelda Jean Prudie waxes nostalgic about weekend dances of her Texas youth; a young girl enthuses about a pick-up-driving Romeo named Cornell Crawford; and people searching for perfect partner wind up lonely.
Love in a Small Town also contains a low-key version of the 1946 standard "You Call Everybody Darling" and a cover of Mickey And Sylvia's "Love Is Strange."
Oslin's coyness isn't always flattering, and the arrangements sometimes border on a new countrypolitan, but those moments are rare. On most of
Small Town,
Oslin displays her best assets: her worldly sensibility and complex maturity. ~ Brian Mansfield