Leeann Atherton is a very good country singer, and Mike Stevenson is one of all those fine songwriters that Texas seems to be made of. When Leeann sings Stevenson’s songs on Lady Liberty she reduces some of the country profile from her previous album Only Glory. The attitude is more integrative, the music more expansive, and the whole thing centers more on the songs. Mike Stevenson’s songs have a clear melodic focus. His lyrics give fine snapshots of life on the road and in Texan small towns, sometimes inserted in an elegiac meditation of American ideals (as in the title track). But the songs are also formed by Leeann Atherton’s strong personality. Sometimes she sounds like Maria McKee in her moments of artistic discipline, sometimes she gives a song a slightly naivistic folk touch, as in a duet with Toni Price. But most often we just hear Leeann Atherton’s a little husky, but at the same time totally sincere voice in it’s own right. Musicians like Scrappy Jud, Rich Brotherton, and Champ Hood gives her music and acoustic and emotionally congenial frame.