J. J. Cale and Eric Clapton, The Road To Escondido (Reprise, 2006)

Eric Clapton's fondness for the songs of JJ Cale has been evident ever since Clapton covered Cale's "After Midnight" on his 1970 debut solo LP. Cale, a Tulsa native, has been playing his distinctively laid-back, bluesy rock since the sixties. While he owes most of his following to Clapton covering "After Midnight" and then later "Cocaine," his approach and general sound influenced the early recordings of Dire Straits even more so than Clapton. At this stage in his long career, Clapton seems to be taking the time to perform with some of his idols and influences whom he hadn't sat down enough with in the past. He made a pretty good collaborative album with B. B. King, called Riding with the King, which came out in 2000. Now Clapton has gotten together with Cale for a new studio album, called The Road to Escondido.

While I mostly liked Riding with the King, I felt that Clapton seemed so determined not to dominate the proceedings that he didn't take the spotlight enough, especially with his guitar playing. A very similar criticism can be made here of The Road to Escondido. Most of the songs on this album are written by Cale, and consequently most of the album reflects Cale's style more than Clapton's. Clapton largely follows Cale's lead here, to the point where it's very hard to tell at points who is singing lead and who is doing which guitar solo. Even on some of the album's strong tracks like the opening song "Danger," it's not clear what Clapton brings to the song that Cale couldn't have done himself.

Having said that, The Road to Escondido has plenty of good moments, including "Danger" and the sing-along closer "Ride the River." Fans of laid back, front porch blues will like the record, although I'd still recommend Dion's 2006 CD Bronx in Blue to them more enthusiastically. Ironically, the album works to the extent that it does on the strengths of J. J. Cale more than Eric Clapton. The album could only have benefited if Clapton had asserted himself a bit more.

Overall grade: B-

Dion, Bronx in Blue (DMR, 2006)

He's been a teenager in love, and king of the New York streets. He's the kind of guy who likes to roam around, but he couldn't keep away from Runaround Sue. He's sung doo-wop, rock, folk, and gospel. He was the classic guy's guy, when everybody knows that crooners are supposed to be ladies' men. In a remarkable career spanning close to fifty years, Bronx native Dion has been a lot of different things, but a few things have remained constant. First and foremost, Dion is a great singer. Also, even though his musical direction has gone on a few tangents, he's never been dull. And perhaps most importantly, even now at 66, Dion simply exudes cool. "After all," as Lou Reed pointed out when inducting him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, "who can be hipper than Dion?"

Now Dion has re-emerged with Bronx in Blue, an homage to the blues and country music that inspired Dion to become one of rock music's founding fathers way back when. Along with two original songs, Bronx in Blue includes covers of some of the great blues standards, including Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love," Robert Johnson's "Crossroads" and "Traveling Riverside Blues," and Hank Williams' "Honky Tonk Blues." The instrumentation is sparse, but the combination of Bob Guertin's light drumming and Dion's remarkably deft picking on acoustic guitar works spectacularly throughout the album. Dion demonstrates an understanding of the blues rivalling that of the Stones and even Eric Clapton, and manages to exceed those performers in his ability to do justice to the old songs without drastically altering the original arrangements. This is the blues in as pure a form as it still can be done, and it works.

Bronx in Blue is a brilliantly conceived and executed disc of simple, homemade blues from one of rock's living legends. Anybody in the mood for some front porch acoustic blues, or even some basic guitar music in general, will love this.

Overall grade: A