Music Review: Josh Turner's new CD

Like Alan Jackson and Brad Paisley, Josh Turner manages to create traditional-leaning country music without sounding out of date. Also like Jackson and Paisley, he's a songwriter with a family man-image who pushes boundaries and draws on sensuality and humor without ever sounding tasteless or playing on stereotypes.

On "Everything Is Fine," he continues that streak, starting with the initial hit, the randy, mile-a-minute love song "Firecracker." As in the past, he takes risks with material while emphasizing values that are important to him, including family and Christianity. He also eases into new territory with a smooth duet with R&B star Anthony Hamilton on the jazzy, sophisticated "Nowhere Fast."

With a distinctive baritone voice that can purr and growl like a four-barrel engine, Turner reaches into the past with a playfully revved-up take on "One Woman Man," a Johnny Horton hit that George Jones took back up the charts in the '80s.

But it's the originals where he shines, as on the playful, finger-snapping "So Not My Baby" and the lusty romance of the mid-tempo "Baby, I Go Crazy."

Turner isn't country music's flashiest new star, but he may be its most reliable one.

-- The Associated Press

CHECK OUT THIS TRACK: On the title cut "Everything Is Fine," Turner paints a realistic landscape of blue-collar happiness to a sweetly relaxed arrangement that's pure melodic bliss.