Coco [Digipak] (CD - 2007)

Personnel: Colbie Caillat (acoustic guitar); Colbie Caillat; Jaco Caraco (electric guitar); Dave Marotta, Yukihide Takiyama (bass guitar); Tim Fagan (guitar); Jason Reeves (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, ukulele, piano); Mikal Blue (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, Fender Rhodes piano, synthesizer, bass guitar); Stevie Blacke (violin, viola, cello); Brian Carr (strings, piano); Mark Levang (grand piano, Fender Rhodes piano); Dylan Charbeneau (Fender Rhodes piano); Michael Baker , Victor Indrizzo (drums); Cecil "Censi" Francis (steel drum); Luis Conte (percussion).

Audio Mixers: Mikal Blue; Ken Caillat.

Liner Note Author: Coco.

Photographers: Colbie Caillat; Jason Reeves; Meredith Ward; Andrew Southam.

On her 2007 debut, COCO, Los Angeles, California-based singer-songwriter Colbie Caillat offers up a charming set of R&B-tinged acoustic pop. Aided by her father, veteran producer Ken Caillat (Fleetwood Mac), as well as multi-instrumentalist/producer Mikal Blue and vocalist/guitarist Jason Reeves, Caillat comes across as a female counterpart to fellow laid-back West Coast performer Jack Johnson, particularly on the light, easy-going number "Bubbly."

Sweetness rules on Colbie Caillat's debut, Coco, which is perhaps only appropriate for an album bearing that name. The record doesn't play like a toasty mug of chocolate on a winter's day, though; it's a sugary lemonade on a breezy summer afternoon. It's light and comforting, a familiar blend of sunny pop and singer/songwriter tropes that flirt with cliché but never sound hackneyed -- a lighter, brighter spin on Norah Jones that sounds like an ideal soundtrack to a few hours in a cozy coffeehouse or a montage on Grey's Anatomy, whatever comes first. If that gives the impression that Caillat is a little calculated -- and if her music-biz heritage (her dad co-produced Fleetwood Mac's Rumours and Tusk) gives the sense that she may have had a silver spoon, and if her celebrated MySpace popularity is also initially suspect -- then as an album Coco shows no crassness or coldness: it flows easily and, yes, sweetly, filled with gently ingratiating melodies and delivered with warmth and a casual charisma that proves to be quite endearing by the end of the record. Caillat doesn't attempt anything approaching a major statement -- the album is filled with songs about love and life -- but that's her appeal: she sings about simple, everyday things in an unassuming manner, letting her melodies and girl-next-door charm carry the day, and they do so winningly on this nicely mellow debut. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine minimize