RSSLos Lobos vocalist Cesar Rosas has always resisted this arty approach, so while his compadres were off mixing their fantasias, he set down the mostly self-written songs on Soul Disguise (Rykodisc). The writing and singing are predictably accomplished, and a New Orleans bump adds yet another element to Los Lobos's eclecticism. But in the abscence of truly superb writing and singing, the album doesn't stand out. It was to avoid such mere competence that the Latin Playboys were invented.
Skip James and Mississippi John Hurt died before the '60s were over, but both cut definitive blues in their waning years, and on Hurt's Rediscovered and James's Blues From the Delta, Vanguard winnows each legacy down to an essence. James is haunting and haunted, on the edge of vocal and guitar breakdown. As for Hurt, he's merely as gentle a great artist as ever lived--warm, sly, impossible to dislike.
Playboy, Jan. 1999
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Dec. 1998 | Feb. 1999 |  |