Holly

Girl Talk was recorded live to two-track using a single microphone. The liner notes state that Holly Cole's intention in doing so was to preserve the "quintessence of her live performances," and the result is dazzlingly successful. The air of intimacy between artist and listener is so great that, if anything, the feeling of being present in the moment is greater here than on the 1996 live album It Happened One Night. On an album recorded "live in concert," the ambient noises that occur when a large number of people are gathered in one place can seem discordant or inappropriate when you're listening to the CD in your car or your living room; the atmosphere can exclude rather than include you.

If it's hard to follow in the footsteps of a famous parent, it must be even tougher to do so when said parent is the offspring of a music legend. Singer/songwriter Holly Williams not only faces the daunting task of standing in the long shadow cast by her father, rough-and-tumble country outlaw Hank Jr., but the even longer shadow cast by the grandfather she never knew, country progenitor Hank Williams. While most famous offspring are lacking in the talent department and have to lean heavily on their family name, Williams doesn't. The comely singer drips talent on her Mercury Nashville debut, Here with Me. Her music is a pop-Americana hybrid, raw and real while at the same time polished to a beautiful shine.