Hit List

Ernie Hawkins, Mean Little Poodle.

Ernie Hawkins is a master of the Piedmont guitar style developed by Reverend Gary Davis, Blind Boy Fuller, and other East Coast acoustic blues artists. On Mean Little Poodle, his fourth release, Hawkins shows off his peerless picking on a jaw-droppingly authentic rendition of Davis' "Fast Fox Trot," a finger twister that has sent generations of guitarists packing, and with bold acoustic takes on Freddie King's classic "Hideaway" and the old jazz number "I Need Some Pettin'." Hawkins doesn't have a booming voice, but he conveys plenty of emotion and pathos without sounding derivative of the blues icons he so clearly adores. (Say Mo', www.erniehawkins.com)

—Ian Zack

Dick Gaughan, Prentice Piece.

No one has wrung more emotion out of a guitar over a three-decade career than Dick Gaughan. This two-CD, 21-track set covers 27 years of Gaughan's recordings and provides a stellar, well-rounded visit with this legendary and often intensely political Scots balladeer. Gaughan's singing and flatpicking are always idiosyncratic, rhythmically adventurous, and emotionally fearless, even on the early works included here, which were recorded with such marginal studio standards that next to the new, lush productions they sound as if they were remastered from wax cylinders. Prentice Piece includes showstoppers from each part of Gaughan's career, including the chilling "Father's Song" and the utterly hypnotic "51st (Highland) Division's Farewell to Sicily." (Greentrax, www.greentrax.com)

—Danny Carnahan

Equation, First Name Terms.

Since the departure of cofounder, fiddler, and songwriter Seth Lakeman, the English folk-rock band Equation has coalesced around guitarist Sean Lakeman and singer Kathryn Roberts. The pair are now the band's main songwriters, exploring the contemporary trials of the same sort of downtrodden, forlorn characters found in 200-year-old trad ballads. Lakeman's grooving, fingerpicked acoustic guitar (influenced by Nic Jones as well as James Taylor) defines the lush harmonies of songs like "Rise Up and Deny" and "Clare" and his punchy flatpicking would drive songs like "Speak Your Thoughts" and "Full Speed" even without the band's excellent rhythm section. Roberts proves to be a penetrating and poetic songwriter and her singing is as expressive and rich as ever. (I Scream, www.equation.fm)

—Scott Nygaard

Hot Club of San Francisco, Veronica.

The Hot Club of San Francisco's superb new CD of all-original Gypsy jazz tunes proves they do write 'em like they used to. Veronica offers ten of leader/guitarist Paul Mehling's top Django-style compositions, including new recordings of old Mehling favorites like "Don't Panic," "I'm Not Impressed," and the title track, as well as several impressive new tunes. The Hot Club of San Francisco's sound has matured enormously, stepping away from its earlier frenetic approach and adopting lush, elegant arrangements where Mehling's lead guitar can playfully interact with Evan Price's lyrical violin solos. (Hot Club of San Francisco, www.hcsf.com)

—David McCarty

Richard Buckner, Impasse.

On his most melodic and modern-sounding record to date, Richard Buckner fills the open spaces with catchy guitar and new-wave keyboard hooks. Handling all the instruments himself, with the exception of drums, which were played by his wife, Penny Jo, Buckner puts his poetic tunes in a new context. Aside from his voice and the occasional tremolo twang, there's little here that could be classified as alt-country. While Impasse doesn't have the grace and spaciousness of Devotion and Doubt or Bloomed, it shows that Buckner's not only a brilliant lyricist, he's also a fine tunesmith and record maker. (Overcoat, www.overcoatrecordings.com)

—Drew Pearce

Cephas and Wiggins, Somebody Told the Truth.

John Cephas, a blues fingerpicker with a soothing baritone, and Phil Wiggins, a harmonica player with locomotive intensity, have forged the kind of artistic interplay that comes from performing thousands of gigs across many years and miles. On Somebody Told the Truth, they deliver a fine set of upbeat Piedmont-style blues that gets the toes tapping, even when the subject matter turns to outlaws, spurned lovers, and cocaine use. There are many highlights here, including the ragtime take on Robert Johnson's Delta blues "Last Fair Deal Gone Down," the soulfully harmonized Wiggins original "Forgiveness," and the instrumental "Bowling Green Strut." On the old torch song "Darkness on the Delta," recorded live in November 1991 with jazz great Tal Farlow on guitar, Cephas shows he can also croon with the best of them. (Alligator, www.alligator.com)

—Ian Zack

Andrew Hardin, Just Like This Train.

Andrew Hardin's Just Like This Train reveals a mellower side of this virtuoso guitarist, whose sound has become more sumptuous and sophisticated than on his previous CDs. His rich tone on acoustic and electric guitars and on tiple is reminiscent of Bill Frisell's. Hardin's compositions are gorgeous—at once mysterious ("In Casa di Nebbia"), sultry ("Most of All"), and haunting ("Athabasca")—and he adds color and complexity with blues and jazz interpretations of Willie Nelson's "Stay Away from Lonely Places," Norman Blake's "Last Train from Poor Valley," and the title track by Joni Mitchell. Even with such a wide stylistic range, Just Like This Train has a unique sensibility and coherent mood, infused with lush Hawaiian undertones and tinged with a bittersweet melancholy. (Andrew Hardin, www.andrewhardin.com)

—Céline Keating

Winifred Horan, Just One Wish.

Winifred Horan, who plays with the popular Irish group Solas, is a fiddler with a yen for musical roaming. Here, on her first solo CD, she taps into styles as diverse as French musette (the accordion-centered tunes of Depression-era Parisian dance halls), classical music, and techno-pop and fuses them into complex arrangements, all the while keeping one foot firmly planted in Irish tradition. Just One Wish is a mix of waltzes, jigs, reels, marches, and airs (nearly all Horan's own compositions) that's characterized by lavish backup, tasteful percussion, and a mellow, swinging rhythm, all ably abetted by the creative guitar work of Donal Clancy, Dave Cullen, and coproducer/multi-instrumentalist Seamus Egan. On the reel "Into Your Eyes," Clancy's subtle backbeat comping implies intriguing chords, and Cullen's classical guitar highlights the jazz-waltz feel of "A Kiss by Messenger." (Shanachie, www.shanachie.com)

—Sue Thompson

Billy Joe Shaver, Freedom's Child.

After losing his mother and wife to cancer and his son to a drug overdose and staggering through an onstage heart attack, Billy Joe Shaver keeps on ticking. There's sadness throughout Freedom's Child, but the CD is mostly about surviving to laugh and drink again. It's wild-eyed outlaw country, with 13 new songs as good as anything he's ever written, moving from rockabilly ("That's Why the Man in Black Sings the Blues") to gospel ("Day by Day") to honky-tonk ("That's What She Said Last Night"). The band, led by guitarists Jamie Hartford and Will Kimbrough, switches smoothly between acoustic and electric, playing sweetly enough to underline the wisdom in Shaver's words and hard enough to drive the songs straight through barroom smoke and sawdust. (Compadre, www.compadrerecords.com)

—Kenny Berkowitz

Paul Asbell, Steel String Americana.

On his first solo CD, veteran guitarist Paul Asbell fingerpicks his way through a stylistically diverse collection of tunes plucked from the great American musical canon and arranged and played with finesse, imagination, and humor. Asbell's beautiful instrumental versions of the 1960s pop hit "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" and the venerable jazz standard "Stardust" seem right at home in a set that also includes the traditional "Down in the Valley to Pray" and a funky fingerstyle rendition of Jerry Reed's "Amos Moses" that just might make you reassess the original. (Busy Hands, www.paulasbell.com)

—Ron Forbes-Roberts

Excerpted from Acoustic Guitar magazine, April 2003, No. 124.

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