Prine compensates for five missing years with 14 songs. Call them subtly melodic, simply produced, and gently sung, only that sounds wimpy and he ain't--his philosophical wit and wacky facility set him apart from Cat Stevens 20 years ago and is proof against mainstream success today. Prine's rueful romanticism is never bitter or self-involved, and at its artiest his sensibility has always remained Middle American. He shoulda been a contender. He wasn't. But he hasn't lost his punch.

Chris Smither is more marginal, but he wants to find you. The Flying Fish album reprises his long-gone major-label repertoire before a studio audience, and sounds brand new. He's good at writing songs--his erotic manifesto Love You Like a Man is a Bonnie Raitt standard--and even better at finding them, partly because he's best of all at singing them. The relaxed voice is rich in blues overtones, and even unaccompanied he's got a beat--he mikes his tapping foot. Tap along.

John Lee Hooker, Mr. Lucky (Charisma/Pointblank): the old man and his young running buddies.

Playboy, Nov. 1991

Oct. 1991

Dec. 1991