CD Review Dean Crawford - Red Blooded American Boy, 2004

Artist:	Dean Crawford
Album:	Red Blooded American Boy
Year:	2004
Label:	Tate Hill
Order-#:	n.a.

When this CD ended up on my desk I noticed two things: Boots, Cowboy Hat and a guy who did somehow not fit the pattern of having grown up on dirt roads and cattle land. And indeed, Dean was born and raised in Jamaica. Which did not at all impact his affinity to country music and southern rock. With his Dunns River Band he is touring mainly the east of the US around Maryland.

His songwriter talent has been inked in more than 300 songs he has written, thirteen of which can be found on his recent CD Red Blooded American Boy. The first sounds of his voice remind me of an early Tracy Lawrence. But listening deeper into the songs it becomes clear that Crawford’s voice has it’s own identity.

Sampling the uptempo songs I like Do I with a fiddle touch and Genuine All Night Man. Both tracks will have the heels burning on the dance floors. Selecting favorites of the slower tracks, I’d go for A Baby And A Broken Heart and Heaven Took An Angel Home.

Selling roughly 10’000 copies of a CD doesn’t label Crawford as a mainstream artist. Rather as one who writes stories and melodies from the heart and presents them with lots of passion. Facts that underline Crawford’s love for his music.

www.simplydean.com