by William Ruhlmann In 1976, Rosemary Clooney made her first album in 11 years with Look My Way, a collection of country songs recorded in Nashville and picked up by the British arm of United Artists Records for release. For a follow-up, UA UK brought Clooney to Britain and connected her with arranger/producer Del Newman, whose idea was to have her make an album of contemporary pop in contemporary styles. So, Nice to Be Around finds her essaying compositions by the likes of Paul Simon, James Taylor, and Eric Carmen, among others, usually accompanied by arrangements that ape the ones adopted by those songwriters when they recorded these songs themselves first. It's the same idea record executives had in the late ‘60s for their middle-of-the-road pop singers, and it is just as misguided now as it was then. The world really doesn't need to hear Clooney sing Simon's articulate, if sour lyrics to the Simon & Garfunkel reunion hit "My Little Town" or copy Carmen's self-pitying opus "All by Myself," no matter how well she sings them. And, of course, she sings them very well. More effective are songs that are not as familiar, such as Randy Edelman's "You," Bruce Johnston's "Thank You Baby," and the title tune, which was written by John Williams and Paul Williams for the 1973 film Cinderella Liberty, but used only instrumentally in the picture. Clooney also brings her wealth of experience to "Send In the Clowns" and Neil Sedaka's "The Hungry Years," which benefit from her intelligent readings. But this is not a major comeback statement for her, and it is actually just as misbegotten in its way as the country album that preceded it.