Lisa Hartman - Lisa Hartman (Expanded Edition) (1976/2019)

The future wife of country singer Clint Black recorded this debut on Kirshner/CBS when she was only 19 years of age. Produced by Jeff Barry a year before he would work on Tommy James' Midnight Rider album, there's an impressive cast of notables providing backup: mega producer David Foster on keyboards, Nino Tempo on saxophone, Lee Ritenour on guitar, with engineering by Earle Mankey, just to name a few. Jeff Barry contributes one original and three co-writes; the most notable, "He Ain't You," was covered by Lynn Anderson and appears on her anthology, The Columbia Years. Barry wrote the tune along with the singer and the team of Dene Hofheinz and Brad Burg, who composed a good majority of this self-titled Lisa Hartman project. The material is good to very good, an interesting mix of adult contemporary bordering on country. "So Glad I Found You" could be a follow-up to Cyndi Grecco's theme to Lavern & Shirley, "Making Our Dreams Come True," released the same year; that trademark '70s sound is there with Nino Tempo's wonderful sax. A solid cover would have given the disc some personality maybe a remake of Nino Tempo and April Steven's "Deep Purple" (too late, Donny & Marie Osmond hit with it in January of the year this album was released), or maybe revising another teen star's music Patty Duke's "Don't Just Stand There" was familiar enough to maybe pique the interest of radio programmers. Jeff Barry and Dene Hofheinz provide a nice composition in "Picking up the Pieces," and the production is first-rate that song and "Kentucky Rainbows" are two of the highlights on an album which is very listenable. Lisa Hartman would play Neely O'Hara in the 1981 TV remake of 1967's theatrical release, Valley of the Dolls. The movie version featured Patty Duke as Neely O'Hara. Both women released record albums, but Hartman has the better voice; she just doesn't get a Jeff Barry/Ellie Greenwich title, which could have brought this fine music to a mass audience. This same year had engineer Earle Mankey co-producing the fabulous Mondo Deco album for the Quick. It would have been great to have Lisa Hartman duet with Quick singer Danny Wilde on the Beatles' "It Won't Be Long," which leads off Mondo Deco. Now that would have given a boost to both acts. As it is, this album is light years ahead of Patty Duke's TV's Teen Star as well as Duke's Songs From Valley of the Dolls, but boy did Jeff Barry and crew ever miss the mark. This smart collection could have been so very huge had they just given Lisa Hartman a hit song to sing on.