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An award-winning singer-songwriter, the Nashville-based Claudia Nygaard has most things it takes to make it in Music City these days. Her voice, though country-ish, is not too homey to prove off-putting for those who think in terms of big city jukeboxes. Equally, songs such as "I've Already Seen This Movie", with it's driving, contemporary honky-tonk approach and the bluegrass-inspired "Prairie Fire" would wow any Opry audience. The dozen songs on Somewhere Else To Go are all self-penned and are both melodically and lyrically solid. The imagery of "What Her Girlfriends Say", which commences, "In the shiny chrome of her automobile/She could watch the paint on his old truck peel," being mildly negated by the odd careless line offered elsewhere, such as "You're all over me like dogs on a flea" (sic). Even so, this album indicates that life as an opener for such performers as Glen Campbell, Kitty Wells and the Marshall Tucker Band might shortly be over, and Claudia Nygaard could easily become the main name on the marquee. --

Fred Dellar