This review was initially posted on June 29, 2010 by a fantastic blog, the 9513.  Check them out at www.the9513.com .  This original review can be found at: www.the9513.com/sunny-sweeney-from-a-table-away

Sunny Sweeney- "From a Table Away"

Songwriters: Bob DiPiero, Karyn Rochelle, and Sunny Sweeney

Despite being a new release, Sunny Sweeney’s “From a Table Away” has already managed to do what none of the songs from her debut album could: chart. Heartbreaker’s Hall of Fame, which was self-released before being reissued on Big Machine Records, made an impact with critics, who liked the modern honky-tonk sound, but its three singles didn’t take to radio or appear in Billboard magazine.

Sweeney’s East Texas twang isn’t as noticeable as it is on something like “Ten Years Pass” from her first album, and the sound of “From a Table Away” is more polished. This is, however, a rare case when polishing a song doesn’t remove all traces of originality. It didn’t turn Sweeney into a pop singer either–this is unmistakeably country, from the prominent steel guitar to the time-honored theme of marital infidelity.

Songwriters Sweeney, Bob DiPiero and Karyn Rochelle filled the lyrics with sharp, honest observations as the cheating husband’s lies are unraveled all at once. “I thought she was pretty, she’s nothing like the things you said,” she sings. In lines like those, it gives some sympathy to “the other woman,” who has been lied to as much as the wife.

Sweeney doesn’t approach the song with the ball-busting vengeance of fellow Texans Natalie Maines or Miranda Lambert. Rather, she sings with a sophisticated sadness that puts her in the same league as a Pam Tillis or Lee Ann Womack when she’s not in pop ballad mode. Much like Lambert did with “The House That Built Me,” Sweeney shows here she has the ability do slow and sad as well as she does raucous and fun.

Perhaps in 2007 and ’08, country radio wasn’t ready for Sweeney’s sound. If it is now, then some of the subgenres that have populated the airwaves like country-pop and country-rock will make way and allow some non-hyphenated country music to be heard.