Arlo - Hobo's Lullaby CDs • Vinyl Records • LPs • Music Albums

familiarity that it was something of an instant classic to begin with. Arlo has slowed it down, added a fairly laid-back rock rhythm and some brilliant backup vocals and turned the whole thing into a gem of a slightly different, even better ilk. His version of Dylan's "When The Ship Comes In" likewise is unusual, slow and almost dirge-like, but it too contributes to the prevailing pattern of slight alterations of the familiar.

Arlo only wrote two out of 11 cuts here, and his own songs (one an instrumental fiddle rag) fit so integrally with the album's unified spirit that anyone not acquainted with his outside selections might be hard pressed to spot the originals. Among the more readily discernible outside contributions is that picture-postcard temptress "Ukelele Lady," fitting nicely with the album's geographical bent and also adding to its pervasive, time-warp aura of the Depression. The past shines through particularly strong in Arlo's poignant version of the title cut, and also with his father's "1913 Massacre," his vocal far more reminiscent of young Bob Dylan than of Woody.

The real sleeper here is "Somebody Turned On The Light," Arlo's devastating arrangement of a strong, dramatic Hoyt Axton song. And the single best mood piece is surely "Lightning Bar Blues," which conveys the Ripple-wine ambience of the drifter. Here, as all through the album, Arlo's singing is more than a match for the unfailingly fine material. He remains nasal as ever, but distinctively so, and he musters just the right degree of expressiveness for the countrified old-timey vein he seems to favor at the moment. He does a beautiful job, and one that really deserves to be heard. (RS 113)

JANET MASLIN