*** Lee Ann Womack

I HOPE YOU DANCE

(MCA)

Seems that most of the hard-headed younger singers who persist in trying to make anything resembling country music have roots in Texas, where there is still an active circuit of dancehalls. Lee Ann Womack is neither a rebel nor an innocent: her first two albums sold plenty well, and she is still working on a music-business degree. But she is also from Texas, and a country singer. I Hope You Dance takes risks only in the choice of material from writers on the periphery of Music Row (Buddy & Julie Miller, Bruce Robison, Rodney Crowell) and in its avoidance of pop country's more obvious studio affections. Which means drums sound like drums, there's no shame in the steel guitar, and Lee Ann Womack sounds lovely.

But it's still a ways from lovely to real life. Contrast Womack's cover of the Millers' "Does My Ring Burn Your Finger" with the original, on Buddy Miller's Cruel Moon. Womack renders the song beautifully, with Buddy on harmony, but Buddy and Julie sing it raw and broken. Not that country has to hurt. Womack is a superlative crooner (not usually a phrase applied to women), as witness her homage to the great Don Williams, the concluding "Lord I Hope This Day Is Good." And this is as good a country album as mainstream Nashville will probably offer this season.

-- Grant Alden