Cheryl Fare has a wonderful voice drawing comparisons to Cowboy Junkies, Norah Jones, and Phoebe Snow leaning a bit more towards Norah Jones (in my humble opinion). 'Springfield' is a nice blend of jazz, blues, pop and folk rock giving the listener a diverse palete by which to listen. She doesn't stay locked into one genre and this is refreshing.

The recording had me a bit confussed as I listened to this CD a couple times to verify my findings. The instruments seemed muted in the background as the production team concentrated on bringing Cheryl's voice to the forefront. Her voice was well defined to the point of nearly overshadowing the band. One track which featured a tele sounding twang guitar solo that sounded like he was recorded in the background. This CD had so much going for it and much of that momentum was lost in the engineering phase of this release.

Another issue was the CD cover design. Cheryl's music has been discribed as "sultry" on her website but her CD cover and back panel are anything but. The cover is a picture of Cheryl looking away from the camera against a brick background. Nothing "sultry" about that. The picture makes her look like a school teacher on her way to the lunch room. At least she was wearing makeup and had nice ear rings on. The the back of the CD features another unflattering picture of her and a photo of a car?

The CD could have been a masterpiece for the female genre but instead it comes off like a school teachers Karaoke party.

I think the studio issues have already been discussed but I will at least give credit to the people that did this. Recorded at Trockall Studio in Richmond, Va. Engineered by Sonny Baharloo and produced by Sonny Baharloo and Cherly Fare.

The band sounded great, it's just a shame the studio turned them into backing tracks. All the instruments sounded compressed other then the occasional acoustic guitar which came through the mix perfectly.

This CD had the potential to be an amazing work of art. That was lost in the studio and in the cover design of the CD. Music is about image and substance. People respond to what they see and smell, first. You can't smell a CD so the visual aspect is extremely important. When you want to portray yourself as "sultry" then go the distance. If you are going to present yourself on the cover of your CD and you don't have a good picture of yourself, hire a professional photographer to take one. If you are shy about the new image you might create then make a cool CD cover with one of a hundred CD creation software programs. Maybe the next offering from Cheryl will correct some of these issues and I'll be reviewing a true work of art. She has the potential.