Pam Tillis' "Sweetheart's Dance" is a healthy mix between 'new' and 'old' country. From the former she brings the trend towards country/folk/blues mixes in an uptempo style, from the later she brings emotion charged songs that country's equivalent of Tin Pan Alley have been furnishing country stars with for more years than you care to remember.
The mixing of the two styles means that Pam has been able to steer herself away from the long wide country road called cliche.
Tillis' is generally recognised as being one of the best female vocalists to have been born out of the new wave of country and looks set to follow in the shoes of both Nanci Griffith and Mary-Chapin
Carpenter, though she is more country and less folk than the former and less flexible than the latter.
Tillis does pen some of her own material and it stands up pretty well against the material penned by the pure songwriters and ironically it is her cover of "When You Walk In The Room" that is the lowpoint of the album rather than one of her own songs, quite simply she doesn't have the vocal strength to pull it off.
Pam Tillis has a great voice when it comes to sentimental and emotion charged material, when a song calls for power, it doesn't seem to be there and as yet Tillis doesn't appear to have come to terms with her limitations, but you leave "Sweetheart's Dance" with the feeling that Tillis has got what it takes and there is more to come from her yet.
