Consumer Guide Album

Bonnie Koloc: Close-Up [Epic, 1977]
This is where Koloc's modest, unmistakable intelligence--and voice--finally make a record work. Not that the old problems don't persist--I disapprove of songs about silver stallions, I'm sick of "We Had It All," and I guarantee that Koloc's own unaccompanied "I'll Still Be Loving You" requires more camouflage than her Marxophone (?) coda. But the two Lil Green compositions that kick off side two vie with the originals and would set the right tone even if they didn't. She does all right by Hank Snow's "Rhumba Boogie," too. B+