***1/2 Bill Fox

TRANSIT BYZANTIUM

(spinART)

"Mary of the Wild Moor" is the only actual public-domain standard on bedroom popsmith Bill Fox's quiet, lovely second solo outing. But the album's other 17 tunes, written by the ex-leader of the defunct Cleveland power-pop outfit the Mice, sound just as timeless, as woven into the fabric of popular music, as Woody Guthrie's salt-of-the-earth folk, Fred McDowell's back-porch blues, the acoustic side of the Beatles' Rubber Soul, and, most prominently, Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. And beyond the array of influences that shadow Fox's work, these songs are all adoringly crafted, small in scope but unwittingly precocious in ambition, and brimming with a vibrant, if slightly bashful, personality. Singing in a ragamuffin voice reminiscent of Dylan and Ronnie Lane, Fox strums waltzy acoustic guitar over a gorgeous little love song called, uh, "For Anyone That You Love," pausing occasionally to blow some scratchy harmonica. Like much of Transit Byzantium, "For Anyone That You Love" shows how love songs should be done yet rarely are: with tenderness, intimacy, and heart, and without histrionics posing as emotion.

-- Jonathan Perry