THE WASHINGTON POST
"Two Country Folkies For Two Decades"
NOVEMBER 26 , 1993


Robin and Linda Williams
Turn Toward Tomorrow
Sugar Hill Records


WHAT IS country music, after all, but folk music that kept up with its original audience?

The Shenandoah Valley's husband- and-wife duo,Robin & Linda Williams, have been celebrating the family connections between folk and country music for 20 years now, and they celebrate their anniversary with one of the best albums of their career,"Turn Toward Tomorrow,"

Produced by Washhlgton's John Jennings, who has fashioned a successful folk/country fusion with Mary-Chapin Carpenter, the album applies the Williamses' sterling vocal harmonies to songs that combine folk's pretty melodies and country's boot-tapping rhythms, folk's personal confessions and country's catchy aphorisms.

The Williamses wrote nine of the 11 songs, often with expert help from Iyricist Jerry Clark.

They display a new knack for Nashvitle-style wordplay with titles such as "I See No Future (In Looking at the Past)" and "A Tender Heart and Calloused Hands," and pull off a convincing honky-tonk drinking song, "On the Day the Last Tear Falls." As always, the singing is robust and sweet, but never more so than on Linda's gorgeous reading of Matreca Berg's heartbreak ballad, "Lying to the Moon."

--Geoffrey Himes