‘River of Time’

‘River of Time’

Jorma Kaukonen (Red House)

Grade: A

A founding member of both the Jefferson Airplane and the still-going Hot Tuna, Jorma Kaukonen has long been a master guitarist and aficionado of American roots music. Those talents are in full flower on “River of Time,” an all-acoustic set produced by Larry Campbell, who accompanies on several instruments.

Kaukonen’s deft picking is displayed on such numbers as the Rev. Gary Davis’ jaunty “There’s a Bright Side Somewhere” and Mississippi John Hurt’s “Preachin’ on the Old Campground.” He leans toward bluegrass on a romp through the Delmore Brothers’ “Nashville Blues” and takes a bluesy turn through the traditional “Trouble in Mind” (one of three tracks with Levon Helm on drums).

Standing tall among these evergreens are several Kaukonen originals. From “Cracks in the Finish” and the title song to the instrumentals “Izze’s Lullaby” and “A Walk With Friends,” they exude the skill, grace and wisdom that define the whole album.

— Nick Cristiano, Philadelphia Inquirer

‘Beware’

Bonnie “Prince” Billy (Drag City)

Grade: B

Five years ago, Will Oldham released “Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy Sings Greatest Palace Music.” Recorded with a bunch of Nashville session vets, the album featured twangy remakes of dark and heavy songs Oldham had released under some of his other monikers — Palace, Palace Brothers, Palace Music.

“Beware” is a delayed sequel of sorts: Many of these new compositions get dressed in country garb of fiddle, pedal steel, mandolin and banjo. Some, such as “You Can’t Hurt Me Now,” are heartfelt, tortured love songs; others, such as “You Don’t Love Me,” are charmingly goofy.

The country touches are strong enough to dominate “Beware’s” character, but there’s variety here, too: haunting folk ballads, bleak and stark confessionals, group singalongs.

Throughout, Oldham/Bonnie “Prince” Billy sings in a quavering voice with a flair for the dramatic, whether it’s his heart that’s cracked, or a joke.

— Steve Klinge, Philadelphia Inquirer

‘What I Know’

Tom Rush (Appleseed)

Grade: A

“Gonna be rockin’ in Conshohocken/Downright sweaty in New York City,” Tom Rush sings on the fast, frisky “Hot Tonight” (with Bonnie Bramlett on backup vocals). It’s the lead cut on his first full studio album in more than 30 years.

Of course, Rush is known less as a flat-out rocker than as a folk singer and folk-rocker, a seminal figure in the rise of the singer-songwriter in the late 1960s. “What I Know” is an exquisite set of folk and country that blends originals and covers. They range from the lighthearted and freewheeling (“Silly Little Diddle,” “One Good Man”) to the depths of longing and heartache (“Lonely,” “You’re Not Here With Me”), their intimate sense of connection enhanced by Rush’s comforting, conversational vocals.

“Casey Jones,” meanwhile, is a refreshingly unfamiliar version of the traditional number, and he closes with a striking guitar-and-cello take on the old Dobie Gray hit “Drift Away,” its reference to rock ’n’ roll bringing the album full circle, in a sense, from “Hot Tonight.”

— Nick Cristiano, Philadelphia Inquirer

‘The Place and the Time’

Steve Forbert (429 Records)

Grade: D

Singer-songwriter Steve Forbert qualifies as a one-hit wonder, in a commercial sense, for his 1970s song “Romeo’s Tune.”

In the collective, his career is much more worthy, including such underappreciated efforts as 1992’s “The American In Me.” His most consistent asset is the weathered warmth of his voice, which is again the best selling point for the new “The Place and Time.”

Unfortunately, the songs here aren’t always equal to it. Forbert’s bemoaning of the hustle-bustle of modern life is sometimes literal enough to be mundane on songs such as “Who’ll Watch the Sunset?” In that song, Forbert muses about how he used to have time for the sunset, but now is often “still stuck in this week’s work or glued to my phone.”

Sometimes, the themes work. “Stolen Identity” takes a modern problem and fuses it to a rollicking, old-time folk ditty. “There’s two of me,” Forbert complains, “one has tons of fun for free, with my stolen identity.”

Too often, however, Forbert’s wordplay sounds a little forced, not more so than on “The Beast of Ballyhoo [Rock Show].” That song starts oddly, with the noises of an arena crowd as an introduction to a rock fan’s concert lament. Forbert makes a poor rocker, however, and the chorus is a waste of his talent.

— Jim Abbott, Orlando Sentinel

‘Easy Come, Easy Go’

Marianne Faithfull (Decca)

Grade: A

On her latest full-length collection, Marianne Faithfull, the queen of torch songs for the damaged soul, reteams with producer Hal Willner for another beautifully haunting tour of a landscape littered with the detritus of shredded hearts.

“I sit in my chair, and filled with despair, there’s no one could be so sad,” she sings in a funereal reading of the Duke Ellington-Eddie DeLange-Irvine Mills lament “Solitude” that was a standard for Faithfull’s predecessor in such existentially aching music, Billie Holiday. Willner creates an otherworldly setting blending sighing wah-wah guitar with sweetly sad clarinets, a gently plucked upright bass providing the only hint that there’s a pulse still beating below the devastated surface.

The album is subtitled “12 Songs for Music Lovers,” and they stretch across much of the 20th century, from the bordello blues of Bessie Smith’s title tune (with its spectacular arrangement of piano, clarinet, trumpet and bass sax) forward to Neko Case’s “Hold On, Hold On” and “Dear God Please Help Me” from another of her music soul mates, Morrissey. Rufus Wainwright turns up to help out with Espers’ “Children of Stone,” while Antony Hegarty is Faithfull’s partner for what has to be the most melancholy version ever of Smokey Robinson’s “Ooh Baby Baby.”

This set is intriguingly bookended with songs from two of country music’s greatest songwriters, opening with Dolly Parton’s “Down From Dover,” a tale of romantic betrayal, and ending with Merle Haggard’s death-row classic “Sing Me Back Home.”

It’s the perfect final note on which to end an album built on the premise that music can transcend what would seem to be the most insurmountable of life’s travails.

— Randy Lewis, Los Angeles Times