Richie Fields’s “Man Enough to Cry” CD has some real highlights and low lights. The title track is a perfect showcase for the baritone’s somewhat limited range and is the best song on the album. A sweet ballad about raising a little boy to be a good man, it’s definitely worth a listen.

He should have started off the album with that track. Unfortunately, it opens with “I Remember That Lonely,” which is just not a good fit for Fields’s voice, and listening to him reach for some of those notes is a little hard on the ears.

The CD does get better from there, with fun numbers including “Saving it Up for Saturday Night” and “Short Term Gain, Long Term Pain”; the twangy “(She’s Bound To Be) Somebody’s Baby”; and the sentimental ballad “In A Place Like This.”

I almost really like the so-funny “When Did I Get Old?”

It takes a crow bar to get my butt off the couch.
I hear my daddy’s words coming out of my mouth
How’d I get here? Man, it’s freaking me out!
When did I get here, became a rock that just don’t roll!

Nothing terribly original here, with songs of good women, bad women, good times and lost love. Not a bad efforts, but not a hit that I hear here.

For more information on Richie Fields, see www.richiefields.com.

Vicky Dobbin is a country music lover in Falls Church, VA. Read her country music blog at www.lovemycountrymusic.com and follow her at http://twitter.com/vdobbin.