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David Bowman

All the Old Dudes (And One Old Crow)

Avenue B , Iggy Pop (Virgin/America).

Hours … , David Bowie (Virgin/America). Vagabond Ways , Marianne Faithfull (It Records/Virgin U.K.). James Jewell Osterberg (Iggy Pop), David Robert Jones (David Bowie) and Marianne Faithfull (Marianne Faithfull) are all 53 years old. Each has just released a record that confronts the state commonly referred to as middle age. Read More

Smoldering Patti Smith Burns Through Bland Bio

Patti Smith: An Unauthorized Biography , by Victor Bockris and Roberta Bayley. Simon & Schuster, 336 pages, $25.

Patti Smith wallows in language. She chants. Rants. She loops incantations. The act of writing makes her kooky. "When I'm home writing on a typewriter," she said, "I go crazy. I move like a monkey. I've wet myself, Read More

Got Guitar? Richard Thompson Shoots Out the Lights Again

Mock Tudor , Richard Thompson (Capitol).

The time: July 19, 1999 (the middle of the heat wave). The place: Tonic, a Norfolk Street beer joint. There, British guitarist-songwriter Richard Thompson and his small band performed a low-profile 7 P.M. showcase to promote his just-released album, Mock Tudor . Before the show, he chatted with a journalist Read More

Nixon Without Hindsight: Determined, Creepy, Durable

The Contender: Richard Nixon, The Congress Years, 1946-1952 , by Irwin F. Gellman. The Free Press, 590 pages, $30.

You and I supposedly have a baby squatting in our psyches. An "inner child." Maybe. But I believe most of us do possess an "inner Nixon." For those of us who were teenagers during Watergate and rebelling Read More

The Year of the Wolf-Los Lobos and Family

This Time , Los Lobos (Hollywood Records).

Dose , Latin Playboys (Atlantic). Soul Disguise , Cesar Rosas (Rykodisc). Houndog , Houndog (Columbia Legacy). This last year of the 20th century turns out to be the year of the wolf: Los Lobos. In the spring, that band from East Los Angeles released three offshoot records. This summer Read More

Bonus Tracks Can’t Sink Oar – Beck, Tom Waits Sing in Praise

Oar . Skip Spence. Sundazed.

More Oar: A Tribute to the Alexander (Skip) Spence Album . Various artists. Birdman. Jewels for Sophia . Robyn Hitchcock. Warner Brothers. Moby Grape songwriter-guitarist Skip Spence's sole solo album, Oar , was recorded in December 1968 and released the next fall. Spence's next 30 years were spent doing time in Read More

Half-Empty and Half-Full: Van Zandt and George Jones

A Far Cry From Dead. Townes Van Zandt. Arista.

Cold Hard Truth. George Jones. Asylum. Townes Van Zandt cringed when Steve Earle called him the best songwriter in America, adding that he would shout it standing on "Bob Dylan's coffee table." "I don't think Steve could get past Dylan's bodyguards," Van Zandt replied. He knew of Read More

Viva Chrissie Hynde and Her Shimmery New Tunes

In the song "Popstar," 48-year-old Chrissie Hynde is a well-worn pop star addressing the jerky ex who left her for some Kylie Minogue wannabe. Although Ms. Hynde has never marketed herself as pop star, the song makes one contemplate her 20-some-year career-starting in England with her pulling down her jeans and mooning the cameras along Read More

Tom Petty, Doris Day and the Art of Being Dumb

Good pop music is usually gloriously dumb. "I love you, yeah-yeah-yeah" (the Beatles). "Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle" (Bob Dylan). But Tom Petty's new single, "Room at the Top," is dumb musically, not lyrically, a rare occurrence. "I have a room at the top of the world tonight," he begins quietly over subdued guitar strumming. He tells Read More

Tom Waits Goes Hog Wild on Mule Variations

After cooling his heels for six years, Tom Waits has returned. If you care about the man's last two decades of music, well, you'll care about this album, too. But know this: Mule Variations (Anti/Epitaph), Mr. Waits' latest meditation on whether a jukebox is sadder than a coffin, is no weird masterpiece like his mid-80's Read More

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Sam

God is watching you. When you walk out of a record store without a Sam Phillips record, God is watching you. When you skip over a review of a new Sam Phillips record, God is watching you. This holy scrutiny is more Ms. Phillips' trip than mine. I'm just paraphrasing the last overtly religious song Read More

Looking Back at Lou Reed’s Blue Period

It's just a cultural quirk that Lou Reed's "official" photographer, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, is also Monica Lewinsky's authorized shutterbug, a grouping no crazier then Mr. Reed performing at the White House last year when the intern-on-her-knees scandal was in full swing. What song did he play for Bill and Hillary, "Walk on the Wild Side"? How Read More

Listen Up, Pilgrim: Steve Earle Tells It on The Mountain

For a few years now, Steve Earle has threatened to abandon his electric neo-Woody Guthrie musical observations and retreat into the arms of Bill Monroe, bluegrass icon and progenitor of the "high lonesome" singing style. "Bluegrass is probably the only music I'm going to do from now on," he told me in an interview in Read More

Old Farts With Axes to Grind: Richards Chugs, Others Unplug

Combine Jimi Hendrix's Woodstock performance of "The Star Spangled Banner" with young Tom Cruise playing air guitar in his underpants in Risky Business and you've nutshelled the sublimity of the electric guitar. Hendrix's plugged-in national anthem is a perfect example of the instrument's power to howl, sputter and bend notes while Mr. Cruise's prancing epitomizes Read More