Ron Sexsmith "Whereabouts" 1999

That the term "singer-songwriter" is no longer one of abuse is at least partly because of the excellent Ron Sexsmith. A thirtysomething Canadian who sounds sometimes like a young Jackson Browne and sometimes like the Ray Davies of Village Green Preservation Society, moon-faced Ron writes and sings sweetly droopy songs that melt the heart and assuage the soul. Sexsmith brings an expanded palette to Whereabouts: banjos and clarinets, piccolos and English horns, all enriching his deceptively direct, predominantly 4/4-time songs. Produced and engineered by those masters of understatement Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake, it's a marginally bolder record than 1997's lovely Other Songs. The Kinks and Harry Nilsson are all over "The Idiot Boy" and "Beautiful View," while "Right About Now" is a smoochy soul ballad that Boz Scaggs might have sung back in 1976. For those who prefer their Sexsmith sparse, a sprinkling of forlorn ballads ("Doomed," "In a Flash") brings up the rear. Twelve near-perfect songs, the whole clocking in at under forty minutes. Who could really ask for more? -- Barney Hoskyns