**1/2 Mandy Barnett

I'VE GOT A RIGHT TO CRY

(Sire)

For one final time the great country-music producer Owen Bradley was called upon to cast a young vocalist in the same light as he did Patsy Cline with his classic productions of her songs. Bradley died after recording only a third of Barnett's 12 performances here. But she and his brother Harold and nephew Bobby soldiered on to make an album worthy of his legacy.

I've Got a Right To Cry is also a marvelous showcase for Barnett's gliding, beautiful voice -- an instrument full of smoldering emotionalism. Ballads like the title number and her breathy "The Whispering Wind" capture the élan of a long-gone era of country music, not only in their spare arrangements -- colored by Jordanaires-like supporting voices, strings, and guitar statements that trace their songs' melodies -- but in their unvarnished infatuation with, well, infatuation. Sure, it's all formula, but it sidesteps Nashville's current generic-pop assembly-line approach to provide a framework from which a singer's personality can emerge. Barnett's only failing is that the personality here is mostly Cline's.

-- Ted Drozdowski