Tanya Tucker is the first of CBS superproducer Billy Sherrill's stable of stars to leave for another label and rumor has it that she crossed over for a seven-figure sum. Whatever the cost, somebody got burned. I think it was us fans.

Tanya's main asset has always been her voice, a deep, throaty mezzo, with a tear as distinctive as Joni Mitchell's in it. Sherrill always took a strangely offhand attitude toward the material he gave her, with some odd juxtapositions of voice and material getting waxed as a result. When it worked best, as in "Blood Red and Goin' Down," it was chilling. Tanya always was her best with Gothic tales set to music.

The failure of the current set is due to a lot more than weak material, though. Snuff Garrett's production work is abysmally undistinguished and sounds just like what it is — a Hollywood schlockmeister trying his hand at country. Things get really out of hand on one cut, "The Serenade That We Played," a garbagey pop number of the sort that Cher used to record before she got smart, on which Tanya vainly tries to outshout the swelling strings. Wretched rock excess creeps in on the previous song, a remake of "When Will I Be Loved" that allegedly has Phil Everly singing one of its harmony lines but which is so overblown and hurried that it sounds like everyone concerned was embarrassed by it. Her version of Jessi Colter's "I'm Not Lisa" has nothing to recommend it over the original.

Still, the album isn't without some bright moments. "Traveling Salesman" would have made a good throwaway on a Sherrill album (although the arrangement and production would have been better), "Someday Soon" resurrects an old Ian & Sylvia song I've always liked and "San Antonio Stroll" is bright, melodic and infectious—the only song off the album I find myself humming.

But here's the clincher. I understand that not only does Columbia have a new single, "Spring," out on Tanya but an entirely Sherrill-produced album is sitting in the can, recorded recently to fulfill her CBS contract. CBS isn't sure if they'll release it but whether they do or not, my money says it's better than this embarrassment. Meanwhile MCA has got her, for better or worse. They should give serious thought to getting her a producer and an A&R man who know what they're doing and set about trying to make records worthy of Tanya Tucker's still developing talent. (RS 189)

ED WARD