When Findlay Brown followed up his 2007 soft-rock debut Separated by the Sea with the bouncy single “All That I Have” (produced by Bernard Butler) and a keening cover of Joe Smooth’s 1987 house classic “Promised Land,” he appeared to be the rare singer-songwriter who was down with the dance floor. But Brown’s Verve debut looks back further than, say, Everything but the Girl, as he impersonates Roy Orbison and cribs expertly from the Midnight Cowboy theme (“Teardrops Lost in the Rain”). “That’s Right” might make a honky-tonk bounce, but on lesser songs like “Everybody Needs Love,” Brown’s potentially heartbreaking voice gets drowned in too much over-orchestrated sap.
