It sounds like a dream come true for a lot of aspiring singer-songwriters, to have your debut album expertly produced by an old hand in the business, which also means it features several guest stars—not just locals, but folks with real national clout. Renee Cheek has just that on The Walkaway Sessions: Al “Carnival Time” Johnson himself returns for a new version of “No Regrets,” Dr. John and Marcia Ball both guest on her tribute “Goodbye Bobby Charles,” Sir Douglas Quintet organist Augie Meyers does his thing on a couple of cuts. And then there are the duets “In the Middle of the Night” and “Daydreaming,” both of which feature none other than Marty Balin of Jefferson Airplane/Starship fame.

Producer/bassist David Hyde knows a lot of people. (He’s played with Dr. John, Bobby Charles, Gatemouth Brown and Delbert McClinton, to name a few.) The selection of genres he fashions around Renee are picture-perfect: soul-blues struts, swamp-pop ballads, country steppers, Tex-Mex workouts. The fatal flaw of these sessions, laid down over two years in several different cities as time and money permitted, isn’t that Cheek’s songs are too ordinary; they’re solid enough for the most part, tales of love and redemption, as they say, with only one major stumble at the end with the sitar-laden environmental anthem “Fish Kills.” (“Can you feel it in the air? Mother Earth is in despair”). Cheek’s voice is another story, however, neither possessing much presence or power, and unfortunately sometimes flat to boot—the discrepancy between it and Hyde’s settings, ironically, is what dooms these sessions to something less than mediocrity.