No One Is Alone;

Continuing his low-key collaborations with daughter Holly Yarbrough, folk-pop legend Glenn Yarbrough sounds his 75-plus years on No One Is Alone, but not in a diminished way. Yarbrough has a lived-in, dignified voice that's considerably less elastic and burnished than it was in his 1960s heyday, but in concert with Holly's clear, tremulous vocals, his leads still have an affective power. Particularly on his main showcase, "I Brought My Father with Me," Yarbrough is able to transcend the somewhat mawkish material with his skilled delivery. The odd choices of material on No One Is Alone include a pair of fairly obscure Stephen Sondheim tunes; the title track; "Not While I'm Around"; four songs by an obscure songwriter named R.J. Rademaker; and "Roads," a setting of a poem by J.R.R. Tolkien that's about as twee as that description sounds. Yarbrough rises above the mixed bag of tunes and the too-polite musical settings, but No One Is Alone, overall, is as pleasant but unstimulating as weak tea. ~ Stewart Mason, Rovi