Imagine being 13 again. You like to sing. Your friends and family think your sound is great and that the kind of stuff you like to sing is Motown, funky-town, Detroit-muscle-cars-from-before-you-were-a-twinkle-in-your-daddy's-eye music. You've got the voice; the music is choice, and BAM! You suddenly end up singing for Bob Babbit, a Motown bassist in Nashville, and you got it, baby. You got IT. Flash forward a year or so, and you are recording your own album, Funkology XIII, full of tunes from a plateful of soul food.

For Whitney Wolanin, her dream is reality, and most of us have to move on down the road because we didn't get to chase and catch the dreams at the end of our own rainbows.

Wolanin sings a variety of songs on this debut album, including "Wake Up Everybody," rewritten/rearranged by Wolanin, and "It Takes Two" with Jimi Jamison of Survivor. Both songs sound good, but as sung by Wolanin appear to be a little too worldly-wise for such a young girl. There is one song on the CD, "Good," written and performed by Wolanin, that is more stylistically appropriate and real for her, and may be a better musical path for her to take as her style matures.

In some ways, Wolanin reminds me of LeAnn Rimes, another young blond singer with big pipes, endearing ways and a lot of talent. However, Rimes knew her audience and her style of music and geared her career path toward choices that worked for her. Wolanin does not. Another song on the CD, "This Old Heart of Mine," seems to strain Wolanin's voice and pitch, although the backup singers sound good and the arrangement is agreeable, if lacking the harsh brass tones often featured on this song. Then, too, the sound on "Young & in Love" is off -- the strings are unnecessary and actually take away from the harshness and tone that a song such as this seems to require.

Again, youth seems to be against Wolanin. Funk is an attitude and a style, and although Wolanin has talent, and good songs and musicians on this album, the artist within needs to find her own voice and style in order to really become the singer she no doubt dreams to be.

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