Consumer Guide Album

Keith Whitley: I Wonder Do You Think of Me [RCA Victor, 1989]
Already 33, Whitley was just finding himself professionally when he died of acute alcohol poisoning while completing his fourth album last April, and where the hell he was hiding his voice beats me. Supple, resonant, deeply relaxed, he cuts Travis, Anderson, and Haggard physically, and productionwise he's harder than any of them, ranging easily across all the purist subgenres except the bluegrass that gave him his start. With songs to match from the likes of Curly Putnam, Sanger Shafer, Bill Rice, this could have been 1989's Old 8 X 10, with stringencies of formula serving only to keep the music on course. Instead it'll probably inspire another stupid suicide legend. A-