A vast improvement over the
Jimmy Miller-produced
Falcon Around album,
Billy Falcon switches to Polygram and gets dusted with a bit of the Bon Jovi magic. Strange thing about this album is that the project/production coordinator is Tony Bongiovi, with the record being produced by guitarist Danny Kortchmar and Jon Bon Jovi. With greatly publicized dysfunction between Tony Bongiovi and Bon Jovi, perhaps this was tracked during happier times. On the upside is the title track, a beautiful song written, as are all the titles, by
Billy Falcon, produced to perfection, and featuring Jon Bon Jovi on guitar. The downside is that, like on
Falcon Around,
Falcon still sounds like the poor man's
John Cougar Mellencamp. There are many accomplices here: Aldo Nova contributes acoustic guitar and keyboards, Kenny Aronoff plays drums, and though there is nothing awful, the end result is an average recording. "What She Will" has
Falcon emulating Van Morrison, and that's not a bad thing, it's just that it's not the real thing. "Married in the Morning" is clever and works on its own level, and maybe if "What She Will" got played a zillion times on radio it would appeal to the Eddie & the Cruisers/Southside Johnny/Bruce Springsteen crowd. "Still Got a Prayer" doesn't have a prayer, nor is it living on one, and that's the problem with a derivative artist like
Billy Falcon. Hearing this, one can see why a
Jimmy Miller may have just given up on the
Falcon project and gone through the motions, allowing the chips to fall where they may. That album fell flat while this gets a passing grade. Still, with all the gloss and slick production, only the title track comes back as original and compelling, and it is great. In fact, the song "Pretty Blue World" is terrific, and in this business of hard knocks, it was up to
Billy Falcon to come up with an album chock full of "Pretty Blue Worlds." Unfortunately, "Heaven's Highest Hill," "Not Funny Anymore," and other songs included here aren't up to the title track and just don't have the dazzle, despite all the groovy friends showing up to lend a hand. To be fair to the artist, this recording got about a dozen spins on the strength of it being better than
Falcon Around, but after all is said and done, it's a pedestrian album with one great track.
Billy Falcon can cop riffs from Graham Parker and John Hiatt and Van Morrison and John Cougar, but "Die Twice" is hardly original, and it is representative of the music you'll find on this well-produced but lackluster collection of songs by an artist who found support from multiple music industry movers and shakers. Most of Pretty Blue World fizzles, and your time might be better spent listening to artists with more to offer.