The notion that an artist's photo is the only fitting image for the cover of a commercial country album is so entrenched that
T. Graham Brown had to fight to use an illustration of a Thunderbird on the cover of his fourth album. This unconventional move gives
Bumper to Bumper the outward appearance of a rock album, but the music inside is little different from
Brown's earlier efforts. His usual country-soul hybrid is intact, with
Otis Redding-influenced vocals and saxophone solos taking the place of traditional country instrumentation. All of the album's hits are glossy crossover ballads like most of
Brown's earlier singles, but the public's reaction was mixed. "If You Could Only See Me Now" was a big hit, but "Moonshadow Road" barely inched into the country Top 20, and "I'm Sending One Up for You" fared even worse on the charts. Commercially speaking,
Bumper to Bumper was the beginning of the end for
Brown's days on Capitol -- it was his lowest-charting album up to that point, and his following album, the excellent
You Can't Take It with You, failed to chart at all. Perhaps his R&B ballad orientation and hat-and-boot-free image ran afoul of the new traditionalist trend in country music, but whatever the case,
Brown's formula was losing its potency with radio programmers. That said,
Bumper to Bumper isn't quite up to the level of his previous three albums despite some strong performances. The driving rocker "Eyes Wide Open" is a welcome change of pace on a ballad-heavy set, and
Brown pays tribute to his hero
Otis Redding with "I've Been Loving You Too Long," but none of the songs is on par with earlier hits like "I Tell It Like It Used to Be" or "Come as You Were."
Bumper to Bumper must have fallen far short of Capitol's sales expectations, because it was ubiquitous in CD cutout bins in the early to mid-'90s. ~ Greg Adams