Janie Fricke - Sleeping with Your Memory (1981)

Sleeping with Your Memory is an impressively consistent album that matches its hits with material nearly as good. Janie Fricke enjoyed two successful singles from the album, the mildly risqué "Do Me with Love" and "Don't Worry 'Bout Me Baby," a country chart-topper that by all rights should have landed on the pop chart too. An inspired country version of Simon & Garfunkel's "Homeward Bound" uses a spot of banjo to make the song sound like it could have come from the country canon, and the title track is a wistful song of heartbreak that shows that contemporary country ballads don't have to succumb to schmaltz. The album's second side isn't as strong as its first, but ends on a high note with "Midnight Words." Ricky Skaggs plays and sings on several songs, and Deborah Allen's songwriting husband, Rafe VanHoy, appears as a guitarist. © Greg Adams