Critic's Review
Charles Donovan, All Music Guide
A year on from her first album, Coltrane took over production for Let it Ride, recorded at London's Trident Studios. The sound isn't vastly different, although there is more backing vocal support (from vastly talented stalwart Merry Clayton). Her songwriting was taking new and interesting turns. The debut had shown a gift for pastiche, but Let it Ride frees her skills to run a little wilder. "Flyaway Bluebird" creates an aural playground out of only a piano and a handful of vocalists, and is her finest moment. The title track opens as a rather routine ballad, only to transmogrify into an untamed, anguished masterpiece, remeniscent of Laura Nyro's best work. Coltrane reaches back to her classical training for "Forget Love" - an icily sophisticated composition with a clever, almost Germanic piano accompaniment. The only criticism it's possible to level at Let It Ride is Coltrane's tendency to eat up musical genres and spit out instant, bite-size, expert examples of them. "Shortnin' Bread" sounds like an exercise from a "How To Play the Blues" textbook, and is the only time Coltrane's undoubted expertise is potentially tiresome. But when the only fault you can find with an artist is her own virtuosity, there's little point in finding it.
