***1/2 Amy Rigby THE SUGAR TREE (Koch)

Midlife crises and the trials and tribulations of struggling single-motherhood may not be anywhere near the top of the list of favorite rock-and-roll inspirations. But back in the mid '90s, while the long wait was on for Lucinda Williams to follow up the homonymous masterpiece she'd put out in 1988, Amy Rigby quietly delivered the next best thing -- an intimate, rootsy collection of comfortably crafted pop songs full of hooks, humor, and heart. Best of all, Rigby wasn't about to ignore the 800-pound gorilla perched on the kitchen table of her Hoboken apartment -- namely her status as a temp-job-working single mother who wasn't young enough to be hanging with the club kids but wasn't old enough to give up on rock and roll.

Now, with The Sugar Tree, her third solo album, Rigby has moved past Williams on the depth chart -- not simply because she's more prolific than Lucinda, but because the casual, folksy sensibility Williams worked so hard to affect on '98's Car Wheels on a Gravel Road seems to come naturally to Rigby, as do the hooks, the humor, and the heart. The Byrdsy 12-string-guitar hook that leads into the opening "Wait 'til I Get You Home" brings Tom Petty to mind, and Rigby does share his knack for taking tried-and-true roots-pop structures and making them her own, not to mention his excellent taste in backing musicians (guitarist Will Kimbrough, in particular, shines throughout The Sugar Tree). But she's in a league of her own when it comes to those little details that bring a song to life, like the way she sets the scene in "Rode Hard" ("Yeah, I got brains and a good hair conditioner/I wanna be ready when they take that aerial shot/Went by the parish house last night for dinner/Lively conversation but the food was not so hot"), and the little laugh in her voice when she delivers the punch line -- "Wish I could grow a pair" -- in "Balls."

-- Matt Ashare

(Amy Rigby performs next Friday, October 6, at T.T. the Bear's. Call 492-BEAR.)