Hope and Desire – Susan Tedeschi | CD review

 (Verve/Universal) 4 stars

If they held a blindfold test for `Hope and Desire’, you’d swear it was Bonnie Raitt singing.

Susan Tedeschi has that same, frayed-edge, gospel-inflected vocal style, a stinging electric guitar attack and covers the blues-roots spectrum.

New Kind of Feeling – Nick Charles | CD review

(Black Market Music) 4 stars

Nick Charles plays acoustic guitar with the deceptive ease of a virtuoso.

Having consolidated his Australian reputation, he’s been winning plaudits overseas and was recently signed to California’s Solid Air Records.

Lookaftering – Vashti Bunyan | CD review

(Inertia) 4.5 stars

TIRED of the rock assault on your senses, on TV, radio, in shops and even on phone switchboards? Then this charmingly ethereal CD may provide solace.

It arrived in my mailbox just a day after I had been playing some old Nick Drake albums.

Born To Run: 30th Anniversary Edition – Bruce Springsteen | CD/DVD review

(Columbia CD/2DVD) 5 stars

Springsteen (and Columbia) celebrate his breakthrough album’s 30th birthday in grand style with a boxed set comprising a remastered CD, a DVD documentary plus a concert DVD resurrected from tapes of a previously overlooked 1975 concert.

When `Born To Run’ was released in ’75, I recall being slightly underwhelmed — probably because the album had been preceded by over-the-top reviews of Springsteen and the E-Street Band’s marathon concerts and lavish PR claims that Bruce was “the new Bob Dylan’’.

Stumble Into Grace – Emmylou Harris | CD review

(Nonesuch) 5 stars

In 1995, after two decades of successful country/folk recordings, Harris embarked on a ground-breaking covers project with the Daniel Lanois-produced `Wrecking Ball’, redefining her as a performer.

More impressive still was 2000’s `Red Dirt Girl’ (aided by Lanois protégé Malcolm Burn), featuring an array of original songs, but `Stumble Into Grace’ must surely be the apogee in the 34-year recording career of this silvery-voiced songstress.

Watershed – k d lang | CD Review

(Nonesuch/WEA) 5 stars

It took k d lang four years to follow-up her extraordinary covers tribute to fellow Canadian songsmiths, `Hymns of the 49th Parallel’, which quickly earned a niche in many people’s top 100 albums lists.

However, instead of an anticipated `Hymns’ volume two, the mellow-voiced singer now turns on a polished set of originals equal to, if not surpassing her 1992 classic, `Ingenue’.

London Calling – Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band | DVD review

(Columbia DVD) 4.5 stars

A Bruce Springsteen concert is an unforgettable experience … and a rare event here, where his only tour was in the mid-‘80s. Despite cattle-yard conditions at the Melbourne Showgrounds, I have vivid memories of that three-hour, knockout show.

Almost 25 years on the Boss is still delivering high-energy live performances, judging from this double-DVD set featuring the new-look, post-Danny Federici E Street Band at London’s Hard Rock Calling Festival in June last year.

Chavez Ravine — Ry Cooder | CD review

(Nonesuch/WEA) 4 stars

More a music documentary than conventional album, Ry Cooder’s `Chavez Ravine’ revisits a forgotten Mexican-American district of Los Angeles, bulldozed in 1950 through political chicanery, to provide a stadium-home on the west coast for New York’s Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team.

Inspired by period photos, Cooder explores, through 15 songs in Spanish and English, the people, the place, the issues and the corrupt system that swept aside a Hispanic community in the name of progress and silenced protests with bullying, McCarthyist tactics.

Exile On Main St (Deluxe edition) – Rolling Stones | CD review

(Polydor) 5 stars
In 1971 British tax exiles the Rolling Stones relocated to the south of France, where in between much partying they managed to lay down most of the tracks for one of the band’s iconic albums.

Masterminded by Keith Richards, it was recorded mainly in the basement of his rented villa.

The 2010 reissue of `Exile On Main St’, especially its 10 bonus tracks, is complemented by a new DVD documentary which provides invaluable background.

Black Rock – Joe Bonamassa | CD review

(Only Blues Music) 4.5 stars

The decision by US guitar virtuoso Joe Bonamassa to record in Greece has produced one of the more exciting world blues albums in a long while.

Bonamassa has evolved from a precocious talent into one of the genre’s leading lights, earning comparisons with major influences such as Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Clapton and Jeff Beck.

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