Brigette McWilliams unexpectedly shifted gears with her sophomore effort,
Too Much Woman. While her previous album,
Take Advantage of Me, had combined R&B with hip-hop and acid jazz,
Too Much Woman is pure retro-soul and often sounds like it could have been recorded in 1977 instead of 1997. Earthy, down-home offerings like "Morning," "Better Off Without You" and "Writing A Letter" show little or no awareness of the hip-hop-flavored R&B of the 1990s, and producer
Steve Harvey rejects the high-tech urban contemporary approach in favor of real bass, real drums and real guitar. In fact, the credits read like a "who's who" of 1970s soul sessions thanks to the presence of
Billy Preston (Hammond B-3 organ), former Rufus bassist
Bobby Watson, percussionist
Paulinho Da Costa and
Earth, Wind & Fire alumni
Al McKay (guitar) and
Larry Dunn (keyboards). Those who asserted that
Too Much Woman, unlike
Take Advantage of Me, was neither innovative nor cutting-edge were right, but then, an album needn't be groundbreaking in order to be excellent. If
Adriana Evans and
Erykah Badu were the most exciting young female R&B singers of 1997, a definite runner up would have to be
McWilliams, whose second album is retro in the best sense of the word. ~ Alex Henderson