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REAL: THE TOM T. HALL PROJECT

(Sire)

Just when you thought another tribute record would wilt your brain for good, a gaggle of No Depressionists investigate the poetic pith of country music's most overlooked tunemeister. From R.B. Morris's "Don't Forget the Coffee, Billy Joe" to Iris Dement's "I Miss a Lot of Trains," the result is a nifty digest of a canon that sagely scrutinizes broken hearts, simple pleasures, and rural living. The 63-year-old Hall's world is highly moralistic -- benevolence battles with perniciousness. Johnny Cash explains the way right-thinking citizens shun evil in "I Washed My Face in the Morning Dew." And armed with mucho backbeat, Syd Straw socks it to pre-feminist finger pointers with her take on "Harper Valley P.T.A."

Several tunes deal in tragic romance and unwelcome isolation: perennial sad sacks Richard Buckner and Ron Sexsmith are wonderfully aligned with jewels like "When Love Is Gone" and "Ships Go Out." But it's obvious Hall's lyric-driven songs aren't geared for mumblers. Creek-dipping spouses Mark Olson and Victoria Williams misservice "It Sure Can Get Cold in Des Moines" with their preciousness, tacitly demanding that Tom T. neophytes go get themselves some of the real deal.

-- Jim Macnie