distinguished his 1989 debut. To his credit, he was smart enough to shut it down for a while--he stayed home for two years and recharged his batteries. Nothin' But the Taillights , released in 1997, is not, despite the wishes of many of us, a return to the hardcore honky-tonk sound of his first album, but it is a top-notch pop-country recording and represents Black's best work since 1992's The Hard Way . The most obvious key to that achievement is Black's willingness to reach beyond his own insular camp to collaborate with other country-music talents. The singer and his longtime songwriting partner Hayden Nicholas teamed up on five of the new songs, but Black cowrote the seven other songs with new folks, who have injected some new juice into the Black ...  (less)