If you like "Steal Away", then there's more where that came from. "Thin Line", written with the album's keyboard player, Bill Elliott, is slick, sincere, expertly constructed, arranged and recorded, marrying soul with pop to immensely likable effect. "It's a Feeling" is the kind of thing that still gets airplay on smooth jazz radio stations. Dupree's melody lines and phrasing are searching and intelligent although the lyrics are boilerplate romance. "Hot Rod Hearts", Dupree's other high-charting single, comes from an external songwriting team and seems overtly calculated for radio appeal.
Some of the material is not dissimilar to that which Leon Ware, also on Elektra at this point in time, was creating. "We Both Tried", from the combined pens of David Foster and Chicago's Bill Champlin and recorded two years earlier for Champlin's own solo debut, slips by pleasantly enough. The problem is that there's a fine line between smooth and sterile and yacht rock straddles it. "Love Is a Mystery" is a case in point. It's beautifully recorded, with keyboards and percussion sounding particularly crisp and fresh. But it teeters dangerously close to muzak. Fortunately, "Lonely Runner", which closes the album, packs a much-needed punch, unfolding with a compelling sense of drama and melancholy. The album now comes repackaged with four bonus tracks - Spanish versions of "Steal Away", "Nobody Else", "Hot Rod Hearts" and "Lonely Runner".
Dupree got back together with the same team the following year for Street Corner Heroes (Elektra, 1981) but this time with a greater reliance on outside writers, and electric guitar made more prominent in the mix. As with the debut, these are songs of teen yearning, callow bravado, lust, and heartbreak. Although every last detail was in place to appeal to contemporary radio, the album failed to replicate the success of the debut. Perhaps that's because Dupree's voice doesn't always muster enough character to carry an album. It's a very able instrument, but sometimes it lacks a distinctive personality. Or perhaps it's because the formula was wearing thin, coming off bland and sanitized. Maybe it's because there was less of Dupree's own writing and so we're left with the cookie-cutter poetry of "Brooklyn Girls": "She spins the wheel of fortune on the boardwalk...she dreams about the lights across the river / Dances in the dark while the radio plays / She knows that someone out there must be waiting / To take her in his arms." Cue the obligatory sax solo.
The doo-wop cover, “All Night Long", is rendered too antiseptic for words. On “Free Fallin'" ("Do you remember nights on Bleeker Street / All The old places where we used to meet / Back in the schoolyard playing Romeo / We were the only ones afraid to let go"'), the tell-tale, plinky-plonky keyboard shuffle from “Steal Away" recurs, but now it sounds a little rinky-dink and anaemic. It's left to the title track (written by a committee of six; a sign of things to come) to inject a bit of vigor and élan into the proceedings. "I'll Be the Fool Again', with its processed keyboard sound, is shrink-wrapped, disposable pop of a particularly wearying variety.
- Recorded At – Alpha Studios, Burbank
- Mixed At – Alpha Studios, Burbank
- Mastered At – A&M Studios
- Pressed By – Allied Record Company
- Manufactured By – Elektra/Asylum/Nonesuch Records
- Published By – Big Ears Music
- Published By – Chrome Willie Music
- Published By – Gouda Music
- Published By – Oozlefinch Music
- Published By – Captain Crystal Music
- Published By – Blackwood Music Inc.
- Published By – Dar-Jen Music Inc.
- Published By – Camex Music, Inc.
- Phonographic Copyright (p) – Elektra Records
- Phonographic Copyright (p) – Elektra/Asylum Records
- Copyright (c) – Elektra/Asylum Records
- Arranged By – Bill Elliott (tracks: A3, B2)
- Art Direction, Design – Ron Coro
- Backing Vocals – Arno Lucas, Bill LaBounty, Joe Turano, Kal David, Leslie Smith, Matthew Weiner
- Bass – Rick Chudacoff
- Congas, Percussion – Miguel Rivera
- Drums, Percussion – Peter Bunetta
- Engineer – Gary Brandt
- Guitar – Robert Palmer
- Guitar [Additional] – Bob Bordy, Brian Ray, Dennis Herring
- Harmonica, Percussion – Robbie Dupree
- Keyboards – Bill Elliott
- Keyboards [Additional] – Bill LaBounty, Rick Chudacoff
- Management – Al Bunetta Management
- Marimba, Percussion – Alan Estes
- Mastered By – Bernie Grundman
- Photography By – Jim Shea
- Producer – Peter Bunetta, Rick Chudacoff
- Saxophone – Jerry Peterson
- Sitar [Electric] – Kal David
- Synthesizer – Michael Boddicker
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