**** RETURN OF THE GRIEVOUS ANGEL: A TRIBUTE TO GRAM PARSONS

(Almo Sounds)

If the alterna-country/No Depression movement had a founding father, it was Parsons, the renegade country rocker whose concept of a "Cosmic American Music" was all about dressing rock-and-roll attitude up in country duds (as opposed to Nashville "Outlaws" like Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, who dressed their country in rock-and-roll attitude). The editors of No Depression even threw an old Parsons tune ("In My Hour of Darkness") onto the end of Exposed Roots: The Best of Alt.Country (K-Tel), their new two-disc comp of tracks by 22 contemporary roots-rockers (plus Johnny Cash), as if it were really all that necessary at this point for them to claim Gram as their own. So it wouldn't have been hard to find 13 alterna-country faves to cover Parsons's tunes for a tribute disc.

But Return of the Grievous Angel does the Parsons legacy a favor by opening his songbook up to a broader spectrum of interpreters. Some of No Depression's better usual suspects -- the Mavericks, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Wilco, Whiskeytown, Gillian Welch, and Victoria Williams with hubby Mark Olson in the Rolling Creekdippers -- show up to do justice and a bit more to forgotten country-rock nuggets like "Hickory Wind" and "Hot Burrito #1." Yet what makes Return of the Grievous Angel an exceptional album, rather than just a solid exercise in genre solidarity, are unexpected treats like the Pretenders (featuring Chrissie Hynde dueting with Emmylou Harris) offering a soulful rendition of "She," Evan Dando & Juliana Hatfield's plaintive reading of "$1,000 Wedding," and Beck's twangy take on "Sin City" (again featuring Emmylou's vocals). And then there's Cowboy Junkies, whose radical reworking of "Oooh Las Vegas" bleeds all of Parson's self-depreciating humor out of the original and turns what was once a galloping ode to lost weekends into a gorgeous, feedback-laced lament, proving once again that they've always been best as a cover band.

-- Matt Ashare