Brooks & Dunn: Red Dirt Road : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn helped spur the country line-dancing fad in the Nineties, and subsequently, they have run their raging career with grace and even some daring. But their work cried out for something more, for an album capable of demonstrating to listeners beyond their fan base the Brooks and Dunn mix of hot rhythm and mall-era honky-tonk. Their tenth collection, the winning Red Dirt Road, is that album. Nobody in Nashville has a truer, fuller tenor than Dunn; he excels here, amid vivid arrangements that emphasize the band's roots. On "You Can't Take the Honky Tonk Out of the Girl," he's a Rolling Stones fan; on "Feels Good Don't It," he's a cool redneck soulman. For Brooks and Dunn, traditional country is just a starting place, where you dig deep, then fly high.

JAMES HUNTER
(RS 930, September 4, 2003)