THREE FOR THREE

After a brief post-holiday dry spell where nothing at the record store interested me, a geyser of CDs by some of my favorite artists has brought my stereo and my iPod to the verge of spontaneous combustion. Since I wasn't wild about the previous albums by Lucinda Williams and Patty Griffin (World Without Tears & Impossible Dream, respectively), I kept my fingers crossed that both ladies would come back to their senses. In Lucinda's case, my dreams definitely came true. Instead of trying to act (unconvincingly) like a 20-year-old punk like she did on her last CD, she returns to form with the wise lyrics, raspy vocals and haunting melodies that are her trademark. I'm a little wary about interpreting Lucinda's words because I once interviewed her and, in my article, unwittingly perpetuated the widely circulated myth that "Sweet Old World" is about her brother's suicide. Ooops. But I will say that, from everything I've read, her main themes on West are the death of her mother ("Mama You Sweet") and a nasty breakup.

When I first listened to Griffin's Children Running Through I drew comparisons to the lukewarm Impossible Dream and feared that she had strayed even further from the raw emotional power that fueled Living With Ghosts, Flaming Red and most of 1000 Kisses. Over the past two weeks, though, I've listened more carefully and discovered that Children exhibits her nervy acoustic chops to a satisfying - if not mindblowing - extent. "No Bad News" and "Someone Else's Tomorrow" are my favorite tracks so far.

Finally we come to Ms. Enigmatic herself, Rickie Lee Jones. In recent years she's recorded a delicious album of cover songs, and the jazz-inflected The Evening of My Best Day (which, by the way, contains a great protest song against the Patriot Act). On her latest, The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard, she combines fuzzy electric guitars and mystical lyrics to make a religious statement that escapes my comprehension in a big way. I love the sound of it though, which, I suppose, goes a long way in these godless times.