Julie Roberts is scheduled to appear at Rockford's On The Waterfront festival on Sunday, September 4^th. She's lined up to headline the ComEd Country stage that night. So, it seems a good time to have a look at her self-titled debut. The truth of the matter is that this disc is very nearly a perfect album. The only real issues here are technical ones that have nothing to do with the material or the performance.

While without question Roberts is being included in the Country music genre, in many ways this music has as much in common with the blues as it does with that genre. For that reason, fans of the blues should also find this release of interest. Yes, Roberts' voice does have a twang, and many of the country music instrumental mainstays are present, but this release is nearly as close to the works of people like Bonnie Raitt and Billie Holiday as it is to female country icons like Tanya Tucker and Loretta Lynn. Don't expect to hear the more pop oriented country sounds of such recent artists as Shania Twain or Faith Hill, though - this is legit. It's difficult when listening to this disc to believe that this is the first album from this South Carolina singer. So mature is the songwriting and singing that it would be easy to imagine this lady being a veteran with many years in the business. That said, Roberts doesn't have any of the songwriting credits, that honor going to veterans - but her vocal performance is certainly all her.

I mentioned some technical issues, but it is really only one. Perhaps it's just the copy that I have, but there seems to be some compatibility issues. The CD isn't recognized in my boom box at all - granted this is an older machine, and when I try to play it on my computer it won't auto play. It seems to work fine in my DVD player, though and a walkman. Since there are no extra features or any type of enhanced characteristics to the CD, I'm guessing this copy might be a little off. Still, even if it were a problem with all of them, that's almost like splitting hairs in a review. It seemed like it needed to be mentioned, though.

All in all this is a disc that shows that there is still talent out there in the mass-market media machine called the music industry. It would be easy to ignore a new artist like Roberts as being some under-talented over publicized media creation. If you did that, though, you'd be missing out on one of the new real talented people out there. I'm looking forward to seeing where Roberts goes next. She shows a lot of promise for a long and strong career of making quality music. That's hard to find in this day and age.