René Spencer Saller

Various Artists Por Vida: A Tribute to the Songs of Alejandro Escovedo (Or) Tribute compilations are tricky bastards. Given the regrettably narrow and highly specialized tastes of most music fans, a successful various-artists comp tends to have a narrow scope: The compilers choose songs written by one person and performed by members of his or […]

The Naysayer Kitten Time (Red Panda Records) As anyone who has ever sobbed into soft, forgiving feline fur can tell you, there’s nothing like a cat when it comes to free therapy. Take it from Anna Padgett, the Naysayer’s singer, songwriter, and only permanent member: “Kitten time, kitten time/How do you know when it’s kitten […]

Jolie Holland Escondida (Anti) With her languid drawl, her vintage guitars, and her penchant for ancient parlor tunes, Jolie Holland traffics in what rock scribe Greil Marcus once called “the old, weird America.” But don’t think for a minute that she’s some dusty period piece. On Escondida, her second album and her first for Anti, […]

The Roots are, among other things, exhibit A when earnest white National Public Radio members try to argue that not all contemporary rap is crass consumerist crap: “They rail against the system! They make with the uplifting messages! They’ve got a real live drummer and everything!” But, unfortunately for the Roots — six records in […]

A.C. Newman The Slow Wonder (Matador) The problem with the “pop” tag is that it’s essentially meaningless: J.Lo is pop. Elvis Costello is pop. OutKast is pop. Bing Crosby is pop. And A.C. Newman is pop. Of course, a literalist might argue that pop music is popular music, by which standard Newman’s, alas, is disqualified. […]

Getting old sure can blow sometimes. You feel kinda smart and all, telling the shiny-eyed kid that her favorite new band (a) isn’t reinventing music as we know it, (b) isn’t even inventing a new hybrid of existing musics, and (c) isn’t doing anything that someone else didn’t already do better 100 years ago. But […]

Wilco A Ghost Is Born (Nonesuch) Listen closely to A Ghost Is Born, and you’ll discern a faint whooshing noise, the teensiest hiss of concentrated air, silence made sibilant. No, it’s not the sound of 16,000 rock critics preparing to service their lord and master, Jeff Tweedy. It’s not some clever studio gimmick courtesy of […]

Patti Smith TrampinÕ (Columbia) Most artists survive by reinventing themselves. The media, always angling for the snappy lead, demand of their subjects new storylines, and the subjects (who, after all, have stuff to sell) usually acquiesce. But Patti Smith, like God and Edith Piaf, is eternal — exactly the same as she was 29 years […]

Ike Turner His Woman, Her Man (Funky Delicacies) It was Ike Turner’s curse and blessing that he hooked up with Anna Mae Bullock, a teenage girl from Nutbush, Tenn. The same might be said of her. She started out as a backup singer in Turner’s band, the Kings of Rhythm; was impregnated by one of […]

Sam PhillipsA Boot and a Shoe (Nonesuch) “When no one is listening, I have so much to say,” Sam Phillips sings on “How to Quit,” the opening track of her new CD, A Boot and a Shoe. It’s a bit of an exaggeration — some of us have been listening to her obsessively for 16 […]

Alison Krauss has come a long way since her days on the Champaign talent-show circuit. The violin prodigy formed her own band at age 10, won the Illinois State Fair fiddle championship two years later, and scored a recording deal with Rounder Records by the time she was 14. By 16, she’d dropped her debut, […]