Barbara Fairchild - This Is Me (1978) [Vinyl]

Review by Greg Adams
This is Me was Barbara Fairchild's last album for Columbia before she was cut loose to pursue an elusive comeback hit on a variety of labels. The album has a pair of odd breakup songs that make use of death imagery: "Our Love's Not Dead (It's Just Buried Alive)," and "It's Sad to Go to the Funeral (Of a Good Love That Has Died)." The latter barely registered on the country charts, and was Fairchild's final Columbia hit. It's too bad the album wasn't a success, since Fairchild wrote most of the songs with her husband, Randy Reinhard, and clearly meant for it to be a personal statement. Her vocal performances are more soulful and womanly than they were on her early hits, many of which cast her in a naive, girlish role, but none of the songs can complete with "Baby Doll" or "Teddy Bear" in terms of memorability or emotional impact. The tone of the album varies widely from the aforementioned morbid cuts, to the well-intentioned but trite "People of the World (I Love You)," and it isn't surprising that -- despite Fairchild's admirable ambitions -- This is Me failed to sustain Columbia's interest.