With "Some Lessons Learned," Tony Award winning (Wicked) and Emmy-winning (for Pushing Daisies), Kristin Chenoweth has realized a life-long dream of recording an album in Nashville. And while the effervescent Tony and Emmy award-winning singer/actress from Oklahoma certainly can sing country, it's hard to separate her Broadway style of singing on some of these songs but overall, if you just listen to the album as a country-ish Vocal pop album, it's a well made, well-sung record certainly worth your time.

Particular stand-outs on Some Lessons Learned are "Fathers and Daughters," (click to listen) "What Would Dolly Do," "Change," "Borrowed Angels" and the title track "Lessons Learned."

"Fathers and Daughters" is a new spotlight track/single and it features a well-written lyric about the bond formed between fathers and their daughters, even when the father may have hoped for a boy before the baby girl came along. "Change," written and originally recorded by Kristin's idol Dolly Parton, shows off Kristin's fantastic singing voice and how she can really interpret a song in the best of ways (when the producers get out of the way). "Borrowed Angels" was a song that Kristin had recorded six years ago fro a Christian album but the new arrangement on this album suits the music much more as the acoustic arrangement allows Kristin to sing the lyric without huge layers of strings (just a tasteful moment at the end of the song with Cello leading the way for the rest of the song). The Diane Warren lyric has such a healing message for people who are grieving the loss of a loved one gone too soon that it deserves to be heard for that message if for nothing else.

The other two tracks mentioned above, "What Would Dolly Do" and Lessons Learned" are both uptempo tracks and "What Would Dolly Do" is a really fun song and there's no doubting that this one's a country song. It features The Jordanaires on background vocals and they lend an air of classic country sounds to this song about a woman who looks to get revenge on the man who cheated on her. It's one of two songs featuring co-writes from Kristin and it's also one of her most relaxed performances on the record." The other uptempo track on our list of best tracks on the album is the title track."Lessons Learned" is a song about taking any regrets and missteps from along the road of life and turning them into positives. It's a song with a contemporary pop-leaning melody and vocal delivery but it suits the mood and spirit of the song.

There are a couple outright twangy tunes on this album and they include the Gary Burr/Victoria Shaw co-write "God And Me," "What More Do You Want" (complete with call-and-response verses), "I Want Somebody (Bitch About), and "I Didn't." They're all well done and stand out in their own way and show that Kristin could make a strong outright country record if every song were given more 'country' production and less of the processed production that muddies a few of the songs here, including album opener "I Was Here."

Still, despite those few songs with issues, in general I find "Some Lessons Learned to be a very good album, particularly if you go in not expecting a completely mainstream country album and look at this album for what it is, a vocal pop album with mostly organic production and strongly written songs. I think that Kristin could really have music out on the mainstream charts if she could work with a different producer. While Bob Ezrin is an award-winning producer, he's not really a country producer and it shows on this record but thanks to her personality and sheer talent, Kristen Chenoweth manages to succeed with Some Lessons Learned in spite of some of the production choices.

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