AMG Review of Everyone Has a Story

Stephen Thomas Erlewine
All Music Guide

Everyone Has a Story collects nine performance of the ongoing #Today Show segment of the same name, a feature where Kathie Lee Gifford and her collaborator David Friedman turn a viewer's submitted story into a full-fledged song. Here, Gifford only sings one of the tunes -- Norm Lewis, Carolee Carmello, Cheyenne Jackson, Christine Ebersole, Aaron Lazar, Julia Murney, Chuck Cooper, and Rebecca Luker sing the rest -- but they're all easily identifiable as her work, as they're grandly orchestrated pomp-pop suited for Broadway. This may veer toward the sentimental and treacly, but there's little doubt that's the whole point of the affair, and it will satisfy Gifford's fans precisely because that's its nature.