These tribute CDs are often hit or miss, either it's executed with a fine quality by all or most of the artists involved, or it's just a CD that sounds like a cheap payday/self-promotion.  Luckily, Come Together - America Salutes the Beatles falls on this line more toward the quality side.  If we learned anything from the hit TV show American Idol, it's that it is probably a bad move covering Beatles songs.  For some reason, it sounds messy and brings out the amateur sound in all of the contestants.  Now that's not to diminish The Beatles music at all, in fact I believe that it's a testament to the genius of not only the songwriting of the Fab Four, but their unmatched performances.

So what do we have here?  The "America" in America Salutes the Beatles is supposed to be synonymous with Country and Western music.    This CD was released in 1995 when some of these country music artists were fairly new.  Speaking of new artists, David Ball opens the CD with a faithful version of one of my all-time favorite songs I'll Follow The Sun.  Ball's version hits the mark with how the CD should be as he gives his own flavor on the classic by placing some steel pedal to the fore - which seems to make the track even sunnier than the original.  Country Music veteran Tanya Tucker gives a soulful, old-time country rendition of George Harrison's beautiful ballad Something.  What do you know, superstar country music legend, avid weed smoker Willie Nelson completes the trifecta with an awesome version of One After 909.  This is one of the earliest songs written by Lennon and McCartney, dating back to 1959.  The silly lyrics, which made the two legends cringe when they had to sing them, seem to fit better against this genre. 

The next few songs aren't nearly as promising as the first three.  The Long and Winding Road is in my opinion a so-so song to begin with, so there wasn't much to improve on, and John Berry didn't.  Instead he gave one of the most stale love songs and even more emotionless feel.   If I Fell, which is one of the greatest songs written and performed in history, is never going to be done justice unless the artists involved can mimic the awesome harmonies that John and Paul performed in 1964.  Another relatively newcomer, Sammy Kershaw instead rearranged the harmony and the whole song fell as flat as a pancake. 

Phil Keaghy & PFR take on We Can Work It Out, and although their interpretation was entertaining, I feel that the half-minute classical string intro was a waste since they abandoned that idea as they started in with the real part of the song.  For me it just shows that this is an artist who absolutely doesn't get what The Beatles were about, since his purpose seems to be to add something sonically Beatle-like.  Another newcomer Billy Dean gives a gorgeous and gentle interpretation of Yesterday.  Randy Travis changes up John Lennon's Nowhere Man, slows it down and somehow his voice's recognizable twang makes for a fantastic cover. 

I'm not sure how 80's pop star Huey Lewis gets to be on a country flavored album, but he ekes out a good enough version of Paul McCartney's Oh! Darling. Of course he stays far enough away from Paul's impressive original vocal performance, as he only circles around the octave lower just to be safe.  Being in a Beatles cover band when I was younger, I found out just how difficult some of the more complex harmonies can be to duplicate.  One song in particular that's like that is Help!.  Even The Beatles themselves could not sound the way they did on the record when performing this song live.  So it's no surprise to me that Little Texas' take on Help! sounds week during these harmonies, despite the rest of the song sounding spot on.  Christian/Country star Susan Ashton teamed up with Gary Chapman for a fine duet as they tackle Lennon's iconic In My Life.  Ashton's voice really saves the song, without her it falls flat.  Leaving that aside, I love the middle piano break here - where in the original George Martin plays a classical Bach-like piece, here pianist Michael Ormartian changes it around to sound more contemporary, very classy.   

The remainder is plain boring for the most part.  Get Back from Steve Wariner is pointless, as well as Collin Raye's version of Let It Be.   Another duet All My Loving from Chet Atkins and Suzy Bogguss is lengthened to twice the length of The Beatles original to compensate two egos who probably demanded equal time between Chet's guitar work and Suzy's vocal.  The end result is unlistenable.  Surprisingly, the biggest joke here is Kris Kristofferson's version of Paperback Writer.  At the ultra low octave he is singing in, he's practically belching the whole song - actually I would have probably liked that better.

So like I said above, a tribute album is usually hit or miss, and this one is no different.  I would recommend this for the fine covers these great country artists give us here, and for the rest - don't say I didn't warn you. 

2 ½ stars. 

Recommended: Yes