Mayer Hawthorne: How Do You Do (Universal Republic)

The best punk revivalists understand that without catchy songs they might never have fallen for the style to begin with. Ditto the best honky tonk revivalists. Soul revivalists, not so much. So maybe Detroiter Andrew Cohen's civically revivalist Motown/Ford homage inspired him to hone a bunch of hooks and get an assembly line up and running. What we're hearing here is the Temptations turning into the Delfonics--the way his midrange gives up the verse and his falsetto takes the chorus is as nice as his boyish sexism. In the best song, he spills his coffee and misses his bus yet is lifted by a cellphone call where she says she loves him. In a good one Snoop Dogg sings. A MINUS

 

J. Cole: Cole World: The Sideline Story (Roc Nation/Columbia)

Smart about abortion's complexities and MLK's infidelities and weed's propensities, so aware of how "mornin'" spawns "moanin'" and "wet shit" swallows "next shit" that the sex rhymes hit a nerve, toned up by Drake and Jay-Z's 16s not to mention Trey Songz's and Missy Elliott's hooks, he's worth the shot Jay couldn't resist giving him. But he's still not comfortable enough or clever enough. Ask yourself, kid‑-are you having fun yet? If not, why not? Ultimately, isn't that what flow is about? B PLUS

 

 

Wynton Marsalis & Eric Clapton: Wynton Marsalis & Eric Clapton Play the Blues: Live From Jazz at Lincoln Center (Reprise Jazz)

This isn't just figureheads rising to the occasion or getting back to where they once belonged, although both models pertain‑-especially for Marsalis, who enjoys the blues enough that his monster chops masticate them lip-smackingly rather than chewing them up and spitting them out. What's decisive, however, is a conception in which the members of a blues horn section interact polyphonically rather than uniting in the soulful Texas manner while blues polymath Clapton dictates as well as plays and sings a repertoire that includes Memphis Minnie and Howlin Wolf as well as W.C. Handy and Johnny Dodd. The juxtaposition may discomfit at first‑-we're not used to blues so jaunty and effervescent. But let it and it'll lift you right up. A MINUS

 

Nils Petter Molvaer: Baboon Moon (Thirsty Ear)

Recorded live in the studio with a worldly-wise drummer and a sonic guitarist who adds some modest Teo Macero moves, this is less techno and dubby than the trumpeter's norm, in its many quieter moments evoking the exotica stylings of Jon Hassell. "Recoil" lifts into a riff-driven guitar workout at track three before the music recedes back into contemplation, with Molvaer varying his embouchure and the drums all demonstrative as the guitar seeks out effects. Then the seven-minute title track goes all in on a crowd-pleasing finale. He's always a little too subtle. But in a way that's always the point. A MINUS

 

 

 

Ruth Gerson: Deceived (Wrong)

Nine dead women, a stillborn baby girl, a male suicide, and whatever got thrown off the Tallahatchee Bridge ("Knoxville Girl," "Little Sadie") ***

 

Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs: No Help Coming (Transdreamer)

Down-and-out from inside out, quasi-Appalachian style ("No Help Coming," "Lord Knows We're Drinking") ***

 

Jonny Corndawg: Down on the Bikini Line (Nasty Memories)

Filthy and whimsical, a strange combo anywhere, is even stranger in a Brooklyn weirdo who pretends to sing country music‑-and does, pretty much ("Life of a Bear," "Shaved [Like a Razor]") ***

 

Amy LaVere: Stranger Me (Archer)

She has a small voice for a roots-targeted gal with too much pride to boop up songs that miss the bull's-eye ("Damn Love Song," "Stranger Me") ***

 

Rod Picott: Welding Burns (no label)

Hard labor and its grimy fruits ("Sheetrock Hanger," "Welding Burns") **

 

Blake Shelton: Red River Blue (Warner Bros.)

Although his big voice bogs down making his songwriters' big emotions sound deep, their jokes he's got the attitude for ("Hey," "Get Some") **

 

Sallie Ford & the Sound Outside: Dirty Radio (Partisan)

Appalled by robot radio, 10,000 cellphone conversations, and the premature death of Polaroid photography, she hooks up with a stand-up bassist and sings the way she imagines witchy mountain women do‑-or rather, did ("Thirteen Years Old," "Write Me a Letter") **

 

Martina McBride: Eleven (Republic Nashville)

Megacorny about the right things, including breast cancer, 17-year-old daughters, and connubial love ("I'm Gonna Love You Through It," "Marry Me") *

 

Deer Tick: Divine Providence (Partisan)
Divided 50-50 fast ones-slow ones, this doesn't rock as unreservedly as the bar-burning "The Bump," "Something to Brag About," and "Let's All Go to the Bar" want you to think. But it's sure the right course correction for guys who've always fetishized the eternal old-timey more than any band from goddamn Providence should. There's release along the lines of "I don't care if you puke in my ride/Let's all go to the bar/Baby just as long as you take your piss outside/Let's all go to the bar." And on drummer Dennis Ryan's "Clownin' Around" there's an equally satisfying release from heroin, the closet, child abuse, or some combination of the three‑-maybe prison, maybe death, maybe hell. A MINUS

 

The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams (Egyptian/CMF/Columb​ia)

Unlike Woody Guthrie, Williams is loved more for his singing than his lyrics, and boy does some of this retrofitted doggerel lack character as entuned and delivered. Hank's granddaughter Holly and Amy's hubby Vince you'd guess, Uncle Merle reciting a farewell sermon probably not. But what you definitely wouldn't figure is Nashville tastemonger Patty Loveless accessing her inner twang or a Dylan named Jakob grabbing an unusually witty lament (OK, maybe he had dibs of some kind). And what you'd only hope is Alan Jackson imparting just the right gravity to the despairing opener‑-or Jack White two-stepping his find so lustily you know he has an all-Hank cover album on his life list, and that it can't possibly match up. B PLUS

 

 

Ian Dury and the Blockheads: Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll: The Best of Ian Dury and the Blockheads (Rhino '92)

I'm not claiming I've heard or even twigged all this world-class lyricist's best-of CDs. More than I can catalogue recycle "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll," "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick," and a bunch of lesser-known songs that are better than either. But though the mastering could be brighter on this elderly 18-tracker, there are plenty of them around used and its selection is clearly superior to that of the closest competitor I've found, Great American Music's stupidly entitled 2007 The Best of Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll. The only hands-down masterpieces the Rhino lacks from that one are "My Old Man" and the late "Bill Haley's Last Words," and it adds four others, including "You're More Than Fair," which is surely the only great song to include both the word "clitoris" and the word "toilet" and probably the finest to include either. Tender or crass, loud or quiet, loungy or recitative, cheerleader for his world-class idols or adept of local accents I know nothing more about, he was music-hall's great inheritor. Is there a Noel Coward or, I don't know, George Formby collection to compare? One as serious and as funny? I doubt it. A

 

The B-52s: With the Wild Crowd! (Eagle)

In which Fred Schneider, of all people, proves himself new wave's premier vocal muscleman‑-a not-quite-swish 59-year-old cartoon powering the resurgent arena-pop of his 34-year-old band in Athens GA's 2500-capacity Classic Center. Kate and Cindy have also been working out since the combo unleashed their best album in 25 years in 2008. Nor is their first in-concert album undercut by the nine tracks it shares with their best-of or the five it shares with their comeback, because it's bigger than either. The still tacky, no longer little dance band always wanted to be vulgar but were too arty to take it all the way. Now they have, and it suits them. As so rarely happens with live recordings, they've never sounded more alive. A MINUS

 

 

Jeffrey Lewis: A Turn in the Dream-Songs (Rough Trade)

So maybe the idea of this oddly constructed album is to "turn" from some OK meditative songs at track five, commencing a run of six A-OK outgoing ones before re"turn"ing to three meditative ones‑-and then breaking a minute of silence with the gangsta-ripping "Mosquito Mass Murderist"? That's a guideline, anyway. Try "Cult Boyfriend," one of the funnier and more philosophical of the many reflections on romantic frustration this lifetime bohemian's cult career has afforded. Or "When You're by Yourself," one of the sadder and more touching of the many reflections on romantic frustration this lifetime bohemian's cult career has afforded. Or the all-encompassing "Krongu Green Slime," a cartoonist-cum-folki​e's six-minute history of consumerism from "the time before land" to "the time after land." It's also about the meaning of life, if there is one. A MINUS

 

Kimya Dawson: Thunder Thighs (Great Crap Factory)

Too bad Dawson's DIY imprint is above the Deluxe Edition hustle, because tracks 13 to 16 are "bonus" yuck at its most useless. Yuckiest of all is the insipid anarcho-pastoral finale "Utopian Futures," which dreams an ideal world that would in fact lack‑-among many things I enjoy, such as non-DIY CDs‑-the library system she celebrates so heartily right before the album's true climax, the inspirational memoir of vanquished dysfunction "Walk Like Thunder." Oh well. She's 37 now, married and a mom, and like most aging hippies can be a crank or a lump--in her case, usually the former. So be glad her gift for whimsy and/or confessional lifts most of what we'll call the "real" album. Highlights include the pregnancy report "All I Could Do," the literary reflection "Miami Advice," and an ecumenically non-utopian protest song called "Same Shit/Complicated"‑-t​o which I will merely add that Madison, Wisconsin isn't the only place with some nice cops. B PLUS

 

 

Charlie Parker: In a Soulful Mood (Music Club '96)

Compiled by UK music journo Roy Carr, this budget take on Parker's Dial sessions is findable cheap used and has become a favorite of mine by the odd strategy of skipping his twistiest heads. Although the two-disc Legendary Dial Masters is now collector-priced, longer Dial collections designated 1 and 2 are buyable as separate items, and the first consists almost entirely of originals that include the omitted "Dexterity," "Bongo Bop," and "Dewey Square" although not "Scrapple From the Apple." Worth owning. But in keeping with a generic title the label employed for many lesser jazz comps, what happens here is different. Midway through, originals give way to standards that begin with an "All the Things You Are" that's as inspired as Parker ever got and damn right soulful. If he'd had the strength of mind, he could have broken pop as the king of the intelligent makeout instrumental without getting near a violin. A

 

James Carter Organ Trio: At the Crossroads (EmArcy)

This occasional unit's live 2005 Out of Nowhere was a honking session, beefing up the young world-champeen multisaxer with Hamiet Bluiett's bari master class and Blood Ulmer's harmolodic Son House shtick. The most luscious beef on this more contained studio job is provided by guest singer Miche Braden sinking her chops into Fluffy Hunter's playfully filthy "Walking Blues" and a lounge through Muddy Waters's "Ramblin' Blues." The lounge feel is shored up by sometime guitarist Bruce Edwards, who if he ain't Ulmer at least ain't Jim Hall. Gotta admit it's a relief, though, when sometime guitarist Brandon Ross disrupts the long Julius Hemphill-penned closer. Even the organist, who does his job manfully throughout and whose name is Gerard Gibbs, avants around on that one. B PLUS

 

 

Eric Church: Chief (EMI)

I know the idea is that the studly barfly who kicks the album off grows up as it progresses, but that doesn't help me feel the big dog who wants to beat up my buddy in "Keep On," or convince me that the morning-after sex of the last verse isn't a literary lie. Still, grow up he does. Church has always known how to write, and he's blowing here‑-check how the reworked title of "Homeboy" obliterates one's faint reservations about its moralism, or for that matter how the reworked title of "Keep On" mans up that sex scene. Jack Daniels (apostrophe omitted) and Springsteen (teen-sex soundtrack) are also title-cited, as is Jesus, twice‑-as a woman he doesn't deserve and a Johnny Cash imitator country music could use. Be nice if this bright, basically decent guy was him. A MINUS

 

The Dirt Drifters: This Is My Blood (Warner Bros.)

Five red-bloodeds from Greater Nashville‑-which here encompasses Oklahoma, where the Fleener brothers did what their mechanic dad loved and not what he did, and New Jersey, where Garth Brooks showed Jeff Middleton where he could stick his knack for words‑-escape the working-class rut they'd be lucky to be grinding down right now with capitalism running amok. The strong songs about labor breaking your back are outnumbered by the sharp ones that prescribe alcohol for the pain. But these dudes know honky-tonk hoo-hah for the doomed escape it is‑-a real-life option they understand better than they do the women they drink with. Just as well that their protest song‑-"All the good politicians are dead," "Radio plays the same 10 songs," etc.‑-is called "I'll Shut Up Now." But they won't and they shouldn't, because whenever they just look around a little they have the skills to tell us what they see. B PLUS