*** Roky Erickson

NEVER SAY GOODBYE

(Emperor Jones)

Former leader of the '60s Texas-based psychedelic jug band the 13th Floor Elevators, acid casualty, and sometimes-mental-institution resident Roky Erickson has written some of rock's most starkly weird songs, and they occupy their own space in the narrow chasm between sanity and lunacy. On this predominantly acoustic disc, which was recorded on crude equipment between 1971 and 1974 (except for a couple of tracks salvaged from the '80s), Erickson's fragile genius sounds as if it had been captured by accident. At times you can actually hear the tape warbling on its wheels, the mike being moved around, a missing guitar string, and the sorry acoustics of the Rusk State Hospital, where nearly half these songs were committed to tape.

Yet the lo-fi trappings only enhance the distressed beauty of Erickson's poetry and melodies. Over his roughly strummed guitar, he comes across as a demented, freeform human jukebox, echoing Sam Cooke one minute, Buddy Holly the next, and Bob Dylan after that. Although he sings with the intensity of an Appalachian snake handler, most of these songs have a bright and hopeful cast to them ("Suddenly I'm not sick/Won't you be and bring me home" and "I love the sick man waiting to be cured"), even as he wrestles with the demons that were clearly descending upon him.

-- Meredith Ochs