Brad Martin is a young newcomer out of Greenfield, Ohio (the same small town that gave us honky tonk great Johnny Paycheck); and Martin cites country traditionalists Keith Whitley, Gene Watson, Conway Twitty and Merle Haggard as his influences. With those kind of 'roots' and the great title given to this album, you might expect that this would be a hands down winner of an album but it only comes close!!

Brad Martin writes eight of the ten songs here and therein lies the 'knock.' He hasn't really 'lived' the honky tonk life, and for the most part his own songs just don't convey that blue collar kind of feeling. Martin does deliver 'the real thing' in two of his compositions, the title track On The Wings Of A Honky Tonk Angel, which lives up to the promise of the title; and Damn The Whiskey, which needs little explanation. Listen also for a winner here in The Fifth, a great honky tonk hurtin' song; that has somehow escaped the grasp of George Jones, and made it to Brad Martin's debut.

The album has already yielded a sizeable chart hit with the lead single love song, Before I Knew Better; and Martin has followed-up on that success with the more uptempo, Rub Me The Right Way, which is not all that different from the Billy Crash Craddock Rub It In hit of the 70's.

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