Heart Tells Your Head

Tributees: Ida "Baubie" Halperin; Kidd Kraddick.
Personnel: Tim Halperin (vocals, piano, Wurlitzer organ, background vocals); Jordan Critz (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, lap steel guitar, mandolin, Hammond b-3 organ, glockenspiel, background vocals); Shawna Hamilton, Lincoln Wiseman (cello); Clark Nowlin (bass guitar); Jason Dering (drums, percussion).
Audio Mixer: Jordan Critz.
Recording information: Love Studios, Colorado Springs, Colorado; Third Orbit Studios, Dallas, Texas.
Photographer: Chris Wiegand.
Singer, songwriter, and pianist Tim Halperin is sincere, earnest, confident, and sure, traits that won him a lot of fans when he was a contestant on the 2010 season of American Idol, where he was among the first hopefuls to debut an original song on the show, and it's those same fans who helped bring a lot of attention to his debut full-length, Rise and Fall, when it appeared late in 2011. Now Halperin is at a sort of commercial crossroads. The media glow from American Idol is now in the 21st century version of the distant past, and Halperin's sophomore album, Heart Tells Your Head, has rougher and more uncertain seas to sail. Raised on classic pop artists like Billy Joel and Simon & Garfunkel, Halperin has secular pop smarts, and his piano-based songs and delivery put him in the Ben Folds category, but he also has CCM leanings, so he's big on hope and redemption, and the songs on Heart Tells Your Head bring all of this to the table. A clear highlight is "Hey 17," which features a turn from Christian rapper Trip Lee. ~ Steve Leggett