Quotes

Brooks & Dunn
Hillbilly Deluxe
(Arista Nashville)

On their first LP pairing with producer Tony Brown (George Strait, Lyle Lovett), the duo take it all back to the honky-tonks in perfectly drawn vignettes of Saturday-night sin and swagger. Ronnie Dunn, the king of neon soul, hot-wires the tension between heartache and hooking up, especially on "Play Something Country." That megahit, like the rest of the album, reinforces Brooks & Dunn's position as the premier practitioners of the sawdust serenade.

-- Alanna Nash
Entertainment Weekly

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Album Review: Brooks & Dunn
Hillbilly Deluxe

Ron Young

(Arista Nashville)
Producers: Tony Brown, Brooks & Dunn, Mark Wright

Prime Cuts: "Play Something Country," "Whiskey Do My Talkin'," "She's About As Lonely As I'm Going To Let Her Get," "Hillbilly Deluxe"

Critique: After the release of their critically lauded 2003 album Red Dirt Road, Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn knew they had turned a corner in their illustrious career. They also knew they still had something left in their tank that could compete with the genre's latest flavors of the month and make meaningful music that not only moved units, but moved listeners. This fine follow-up—13-song collection Hillbilly Deluxe—despite owing a tip of the Stetson to Dwight Yoakam's same-titled debut album, continues along the same road. But this time there's a sublime diversity that displays the duo's strengths like none of their previous platinum sellers. While they still manage to uncover or write new nuggets from the honky tonk mines: their latest rowdy single "Play Something Country" or the tearjerking "I May Never Get Over You," and the Eagles-like "Just Another Neon Night," the album's also teeming with other delights. The churchy "I Believe" is a real showcase for Dunn's whisper-to-a-scream vocals. On the soulful Hank DeVito-Larry Willoughby chestnut of love and forgiveness "Building Bridges," Dunn gets to vamp on the Ronnie Milsap '50s R&B groove. And on the cleverly-crafted "Whiskey Do My Talkin'" with its spoken verse, Dunn plows fertile ground that has served Toby Keith well. And while Kix isn't the singer that Dunn is, he's the right singer for the songs he chooses. He plays Keith Richards to Dunn's Mick Jagger. Kix is the beneficiary of a stunning pair of Tom Petty-like tunes that are easily the best he's sung. And just as Richards owns Rolling Stones' classics such as "Dead Flowers" and "Before They Make Me Run," Kix owns the wistfully-delivered "One More Roll of the Dice" (which he co-wrote with Tom Shapiro) and the equally delightful "My Heart's Not a Hotel" (which was penned by Allen Shamblin and Rob Crosby). He also turns in topnotch performances on the turbo-tonker "She Likes To Get Out Of Town" and the confessional "Her West Was Wilder." The bulk of the songwriting credits go to the venerable tag team of Dunn and Terry McBride, and their lead ace is B&D's fastest-selling single to date "Play Something Country." The album is impeccably produced with the veteran Tony Brown helping the duo get to the kind of skinned-back sound that first made them popular 14 years ago. The usual Music Row studio super pickers are augmented by such outside hitters as organist Reese Wynans (Stevie Ray Vaughan/Delbert McClinton), guitarist David Grissom (John Mellencamp/Joe Ely), Mickey Raphael (Willie Nelson), and Bill Payne (Little Feat). Vince Gill and Sheryl Crow also add their voices to this new classic.

Music Row

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Brooks & Dunn, Hillbilly Deluxe (* * * out of four)

Finally feeling someheat in the country-duo category from the likes of upstarts Big & Rich and Montgomery Gentry, Brooks & Dunn up the ante with barnburners such as Play Something Country and Ronnie Dunn's increasingly soulful vocal performances. Though She's About as Lonely as I'm Going to Let Her Get plays out like a guy practicing his pick-up lines, Whiskey Do the Talking finds the same character trying to wash away his self-doubt with false bravado. With its "slick pick-'em-up trucks" and swamp-rock guitars, the title track vividly depicts the weekend cruising scene around a small-town Tastee-Freez. But the album finds its true soul in Believe, in which a young man learns secrets of life and faith from an
elderly widower.

-Brian Mansfield
USA TODAY

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Brooks & Dunn -- "Hillbilly Deluxe" (Arista Nashville) ***

Country fans who think it's time for these guys to quietly cede their title as Nashville's premier duo to Big & Rich had better think again. Though they're both past 50 and though they've been making hits for nearly 15 years, Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn approach their latest album with the wild abandon of red-state frat boys on spring break in Pensacola. "Whiskey do my talkin'/ Say all the things I can't," a charged-up Dunn wails in the disc's early moments before calming down later for powerhouse vocal turns on the gospel "I Believe" and the R&B-tinged "Again."

Southern-rock guitars (and accompanying references to NASCAR, Lynyrd Skynyrd, black denim and honky-tonks) dominate -- but don't overwhelm -- the project. Longtime fans will rank "She's About As Lonely As I'm Going to Let Her Get" with the best of B&D's no-nonsense country moments, while more discriminating listeners will be intrigued by Brooks' thoughtful songwriting on "Her West Was Wilder" and the Tom Petty-like "One More Roll of the Dice." As for rocking leadoff single "Play Something Country," let's just say it's not going to keep George Jones awake at night with worry, but it'll likely be bringing beer-buzzed bar crowds to their feet a decade from now. In stores Tuesday.

By Greg Crawford,
DETROIT FREE PRESS

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On their ninth studio album, Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn fuel up the rocket engine in their jacked-up slick black Cadillac and take another run down the dirt road they were last spotted on. Hillbilly Deluxe finds the dynamic duo rocking the turbo-tonk nation via a raw production thick with rock and roll guitars, top notch songwriting, and Kix's and Ronnie's unmistakable vocal blend.

Hillbilly Deluxe is southern fried roots music at its best. The Stonesy "Play Something Country," the first single from the disc, primes listeners for a collection of country-rock that picks up where the duo's last album, Red Dirt Road, left off. Swelling organ, jangly acoustic guitars and heart-bleeding steel accentuate Dunn's stone-cold country vocal on "She's About As Lonely As I_m Going To Let Her Get." Dunn, arguably the best singer in Nashville today, injects the song with an oceanic amount of whiskey-stained emotion.

Brooks, who has always been a better harmony singer than lead man, steps up to the mic on four of the album's 13 tracks and bangs out his best performances ever. Kix untangles his vocal chords for the Americana-brushed "My Heart's Not A Hotel." The energetic half of Brooks & Dunn takes the B&D Cadillac through Bruce Springsteen country. Brooks watches a friend gamble on love over and over again with a girl as fickle as lady luck herself, on the rawboned "One More Roll Of The Dice." "Her West Was Wilder" has the gravelly-throated singer/songwriter looking back on a flame that was extinguished long ago.

Pedal-to-the-floor honky tonk gems "She Likes To Get Out Of Town" (another track voiced by Brooks) and "Hillbilly Deluxe" burn like Mississippi blacktop on a hot August afternoon. No doubt Dunn will be stomping the heels of his silver-tipped cowboy boots on stages all across the country this summer as he sings the song. The half-spoken/half-sung "Whiskey Do My Talkin'" and the party track "Just Another Neon Night" are classic Brooks & Dunn. On the latter, Ronnie and Kix take the faithful to small town America where weekends are made for good times. Dunn is in fine voice on the gospel painted "Believe" and Radney Foster's brilliant "Again."

Hillbilly Deluxe is being touted as Brooks & Dunn's best album yet, and for those skeptics out there who think that's just a lot of record company hyperbole, think again. Kix and Ronnie outdo themselves this time out and set the bar that much higher for their next album.

By Todd Sterling
Wal-mart.com

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OK, so they stole the title from Dwight Yoakam's second album. Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn's Hillbilly Deluxe, due Aug. 30, is the boot-scootin' duo's best album in years. The music is lean and muscular, and the songs are more than just cliche-ridden exercises in crowd-pleasing spectacle. Make no mistake, though, there are plenty of new crowd-pleasers here, including "Play Something Country" and "She Likes to Get Out of Town."

Nick Cristiano
Philadelphia Inquirer
Published: Friday, August 19, 2005