Dori Freeman's previous releases (reviewed in this space on 30 January 2016 and 16 December 2017) exacted extravagant praise from all quarters save this one. In my listening, her gift seemed unformed and fragile, unready for prime-time exposure.

Specifically, she sounded like a young small-town woman, which is what she happens to be. One does not have the impression of a worldly soul, rather one with a provincial vision and a songwriter's imagination confined to the pedestrian details of ordinary life, rarely transcending that most worn of subject matter: the pleasures and travails of romantic love. I did like her voice. Beyond that, I could only deduce that those who praised her must have met her and thought of her as such a nice person that they were disinclined to say anything unkind.

Knowing small towns and the persons who live in them all too well, I deduced that I recognized the type. Before the advent of singer-songwriters, they wrote rhyming verses and called them poetry, the subject being whatever was going on in their lives, big to them, not so big to the rest of us. One difference is that Freeman lives in Galax, Virginia, which is to all intents and purposes the capital of Appalachia's mountain sound. Little in Freeman's songs hints at such awareness. One has to read, not listen, to understand that she has indeed a connection to the local traditional music, some of it within her own family.

All that remains generally true, possibly except that her "Darlin' Boy" maybe is distantly inspired by the oldtime "The Ramblin' Boy" (not to be confused with Tom Paxton's folk-era standard "Ramblin' Boy"). It wasn't that song (cut #7), albeit a good one, that transfixed me, though; it was #2, unpromisingly and unoriginally titled "All I Ever Wanted." It knocked me out. I didn't just think, "This is a nice song"; I actually wanted to hear it over and over again. At this late stage of my listening life, believe me, that hardly ever happens.

The folk-pop melody -- not entirely unfamiliar but not connected with any other I can specifically place, and certainly not unwelcome -- rolls like a slow ocean wave, Freeman's languid vocal sailing atop it, as the listener sinks, hypnotized and helpless, into the song, about a woman who is planning to leave an unfaithful lover. Hardly a novel theme in any genre of popular song, true, but this treatment, hauntingly sung and vividly told, had me captivated by the end of the first verse. As I reeled from the shock of the entirely unexpected, I wondered if this is the Dori Freeman everybody but me has been hearing.

"All I Ever Wanted" is most reminiscent of the non-rock material Linda Ronstadt covered in her 1970s prime, a pop music so perfect that it satisfies and moves hearts these many years later. If "Wanted" had been around then and Ronstadt had covered it, it would have been on radios and jukeboxes throughout the land. It is not something one would anticipate at the close of the 21-century's second decade.

The romantic themes carry over from earlier Freeman, who probably won't be writing her own "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" anytime soon. Even so, her approach appears less limiting and tentative than heretofore. Now it feels assured, deeper, probably closer, I suspect, to the songs she has been hearing in her head all the while. Here she writes and sings with palpable conviction, and Teddy Thompson's production proves to be the precisely appropriate vehicle, able to accommodate both folk leanings and pop sensibilities. There's a kind of endearing modesty coupled with an enduring beauty shining from Every Single Star. It should have been her debut album.