3 out of 5

Label: Motown

Produced by: Robert Kraft

A collection of the entirety of Bruce’s first album – The Return of Bruno – and some cuts off his followup, If It Don’t Kill You, It Just Makes You Stronger, ‘Classic Bruce Willis’ is probably more than you need, as I imagine you’re either a fan and own the individual albums or you’ve liked / appreciated the novelty of a single or two, and eighteen variations of Willis blues-crooning classics is a pretty generous extra dollop of material. That said, despite Bruce, on the whole, not really bringing much over a bar-band quality as a frontman – he’s absolutely competent, and capable of whipping up a fun vibe, but also not overly notable or impressive – there’s aspects here to appreciate, which I admittedly found myself more able to do when listening to the material at length: Robert Kraft’s production across all the tracks is really rich and punchy, and the backing band, consisting of a roundtable of session players (besides appearances by The Pointer Sisters and The Temptations, and ah, how nice it is to have celebrity connections…), is amazing. When you realize how jam-packed these songs are, and acknowledge that Bruce is only a small fraction of that, while I might indirectly credit him with bringing a good attitude to things, let’s just go ahead and assume that these were all seasoned pros doing their damndest, and that does amount to a lot of really dense and solid work.

In terms of the material: 90% of it is, as mentioned, covers. There’s nothing standout to them beyond the aforementioned energy and professionalism, but the upbeat tracks are carried well by Willis – less so the slower or quieter numbers, for which his limited doesn’t offer much depth – but I think the surprise, which again is more obvious with most everything together, is that the original songs might actually be the best. Maybe not in, like, a durability sense, as they’re pitted against some decades-standing classics, but Willis really does some fancy harmonica-ing on these songs, and though the lyrics are either generic or silly, we’re not leashed to someone else’s material, and it feels like everyone gets to cut loose just a lil’ bit extra.

But that’s all. I’m not going to stand here and make a case for this being more than an occasional – if that – listen. The best takeaway is that it made me realize Bruce’s lesser referenced second album might actually be the more solid of the two.