Also known as 'Norah Jones's side-project', or 'Norah Jones's country dalliance', The Little Willies are a group of country-blues-lovin' friends who formed far, far from Nashville on New York's Lower East Side in 2003. What's surprising about this collaboration is not Jones's participation in a venture that veers from her usual jazz-lite leanings, but her unfortunate failure to make any gainful inroads into the country genre. Perhaps the ultimate failing of this band is that they're in way over their heads; with only three originals songs out of thirteen, it's not being overly critical to assume that had Jones not been on board, this album - competent though it is - would not have been made. Easy As The Rain and Roll On, along with several other loose-limbed swinging ditties could have been lifted from Jones's second solo album, even with Richard Julian's smoky vocals providing adept harmonies, while Lou Reed - a homage to the dour singer going 'cattle-tipping' is excruciatingly embarrassing. Most covers (by country luminaries such as Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and Gram Parsons) fall disappointing short of the mark, but decent attempts at Elvis Presley's Love Me, Julian's take on Townes Van Zandt's No Place To Fall and the jubilant honky-tonk duet of opener Roly Poly are in essence, satisfactory. There's no denying that Jones has an extraordinarily beautiful, sexy voice, or that The Little Willies are proficient musicians, capable of creating a solid if uninspired backing track. One must wonder, however, if Jones is better suited to staying put in the languid easy-listening niche she fits so snugly into; on this offering, it would certainly appear so.