record reviews

John Fogerty

Album: “Wrote a Song for Everyone” (Vanguard)

Grade: A

For certain boomers, listening to the songs on John Fogerty’s “Wrote a Song For Everyone” will be like reacquainting with old friends, their wisdom and vitality still exhilarating after all these years. For post-Boomers, the album can serve as an introduction to the kind of meaty, foursquare guitar rock that has largely disappeared from the pop charts.

“Wrote a Song” is a Fogerty tribute album that comes with the artist’s seal of approval. In fact, he sings on every cut, making it a duets album, too.

Fogerty recruited an array of younger artists to help resurrect some of his biggest hits, and the results rock. Highlights include a thunderous performance of “Fortunate Son” featuring the Foo Fighters and Fogerty sound-alike Dave Grohl; the 1997 obscurity “Hot Rod Heart,” with Brad Paisley revving up his guitar; and a rollicking “Proud Mary,” reclaimed from marching band songbooks everywhere by Jennifer Hudson, Allen Toussaint and the Rebirth Brass Band.

— Steven Wine, Associated Press

Marshall Chapman

Album: “Blaze of Glory” (TallGirl Records)

Grade: C-

An opening duet cooks to a Bo Diddley beat. Next comes a searing Rolling Stones-style rocker, and then Marshall Chapman does a slow burn on Hoagy Carmichael’s “Nearness of You.” After that, Marshall Chapman loses steam on new album “Blaze of Glory.”

The 6-foot singer nicknamed the Goddess of Tall has been rocking out for a loyal following since the mid-1970s, but the new album suffers from too many plodding tempos and not enough strong material. Sequencing and jarring mood swings are a problem, too: Chapman sings mostly about affairs of the heart before offering up a lame novelty number (“Call the Lamas”), and then closes with back-to-back tunes that contemplate death, which leads to buzz kill.

— Steven Wine, Associated Press

AGNETHA FALTSKOG

Album: “A” (Verve)

Grade: B

As one of the two golden female voices of ABBA, Agnetha Faltskog represents not just the slickest of Euro songcraft but the purest of voices, period. She is queenly beyond a “Dancing Queen.” She’s made few solo albums since the Swedish mega-act dissolved in 1983, and it’s easy to see why: She’s her own hardest act to follow.

With the help of producer/ writer Jvrgen Elofsson (famous for early Britney Spears and Kelly Clarkson hits), Faltskog sounds as clear and cool in 2013 as she did on “Fernando” of 1976. She’s not an electro- lounge reptilian a la Bryan Ferry, yet like him, Faltskog has a musical language gloriously frozen in time. Though she can’t reach the high notes of yore, Faltskog the singer is full-blooded and icily passionate on the disco-phonic “Dance Your Pain Away” and the sleek MOR pop of “Back on Your Radio.” The main focus of “A, ”though, is ballads, be they grand and slow or slight and bright.

— A.D. Amorosi, Philadelphia Inquirer