“Delta Dawn” was as big a hit for Reddy as was “I Am Woman,” but Long Hard Climb fails to equal her previous album, coming across as just a strained retread. Half of the material had already appeared in superior recordings — Buffy Sainte-Marie’s “Until It’s Time for You to Go” in particular. Originally a sincere, affecting love song, here it’s interpreted as an forgettable cocktail-cum-lounge number. Similarly, Maria Muldaur’s take on “Long Hard Climb” trounces Reddy’s damp reading — her blunt, rather cavalier approach to singing simply can’t find the emotional core of either that song, or many of the others. The dramatic song-story of “The West Wind Circus” is one of the few successes here and reassurance, at least, that Reddy hadn’t entirely lost it. – Charles Donovan
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