Steal Another Day (Selectone, 2003)

Steve Wariner has had 14 number 1 singles and written hits for people like Garth Brooks and Clint Black. But like a lot of artists who had the bad timing to come to prominence during the early '80s-late '90s, he's been hooked off the stage by the major labels.

A lot of Wariner's hits have been sentimental songs, and on his first self-released disc, he shows he hasn't lost that knack. "Snowfall on the Sand" is a tearjerker about a boy whose roaming father promises to come home with the first snow; only problem is they live in Arizona. Another highly emotional track suffers from another kind of bad timing. Whose idea was it to put "This Christmas Prayer" on a CD to be released in February?

But Wariner's using his new-found freedom to experiment a little too. He channels his mentor Chet Atkins in ""In My Heart Forever (For Chet)" (even though he earns a demerit for the lame rhyme "you will live in my heart forever / I'll forget about you never") And he actually rocks out a little on "Carmelita" and "I'm Your Man." Although uneven, this has plenty of potential, but in a gesture that feels like lack of self-confidence, Wariner throws 5 of his old hits onto this collection of 11 new tracks.