Steve Forbert – Strange Names & New Sensations

When “Romeo’s Tune” bubbled out of late ’70s car radios, it was a wide-eyed kid from the small-town south trying to get the girl with every innocent fiber of his being. Three decades later, Steve Forbert — the Mississippi troubadour and one more casualty of the New Dylan follies — removes the desperation and makes it an invitation, transforming his “hit” into the desire of people comfortable enough in their own skins to acquiesce to the comfort of companionship.

It is that wisdom which gives Forbert’s latest its conviction. Nothing flashy here, just the deep satisfaction of knowing where you’ve been, understanding what you’ve got left, and a willingness to enjoy the ride.

If “Middle Age” is a bit of insight masquerading as whimsy, “Simply Spaulding Grey” is a clear-eyed elegy for the monologuing essayist who created his own terms of living. It’s in accepting what is — even the wistfully sweeping “Man I Miss That Girl” has the vibrant tang of a moment savored and a memory kept — that looking back isn’t a prison of nostalgia but a trigger for what can be.

With an electric jolt, Forbert stabs at hypocrisy in the Bush-indicting “Baghdad Dream” with the same zeal that he embraces the more temperate but equally ardent “You Were Meant For Me”. He replaces urgency with a simmering intensity that’s just more captivating.