Steve Forbert

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of New England folkies who had heard a lot of good songwriters, hung on every song and dry but resonant comment. Though Forbert doesn't do many political songs, he's got one, called "The Oil Song," that's fabulous. It's a sing-along even for people who hate sing-alongs, a narrative of a tanker spill in which the audience just has to intone the word oil. By the end, you feel the degree to which we're all hopelessly drenched in the stuff.

With a voice that's gravelly to say the least, and a way of putting a large body of really ambitious lyrics across to a crowd, Forbert was hailed as the next Bob Dylan when he came on the scene in the late 1970s and had a moderate hit with "Romeo's Tune." If Forbert has never had Dylan's arena-filling charisma, he's nevertheless had an unusually durable career, with well over a dozen albums and a solid cadre of fans.