Yellow Bus
Alternative-country enthusiasts who've ventured into parenthood will want to climb aboard Justin Roberts'sYellow Bus, a tastefully twangy, boot-stomping affair also fit for musically with-it kids age 2 and up. Roberts, no showoff, delivers the 12 original songs here in a down-homey, deeply satisfying voice that'll set the uninitiated to scratching their heads over why he's not already famous. More than that, though, he proves himself a gifted guitarist and fearless songwriter:Yellow Bus's uniformly excellent selections explore the silly ("Willy Was a Whale," an alliterative ditty in which the title fish twies to be wuff and tough while walking on water all the way to Weno, Nevada), the spooky ("Thought It Was a Monster," a story surveying the potential origins of the kind of creepy noises that'll keep a kid up at night with a refrain--"Thought it was a monster / Thought it was a ghost / Thought it was my brother trying to freak me out"--representative of Roberts's delightfully straightforward songcraft), the hilarious ("Tickle My Toes," a gleefully pulse-raising plea for mercy from a tickle-mad mama), and even the profound ("Mama Is Sad," about a child's sympathy and generosity in turbulent times, in this case a divorce). Musically, the here gentle, there ferocious strumming gets support from occasional trumpet toots, mandolin, banjo, and a back-up chorus of completely natural-sounding kids. Roberts's sophomore outing--his first record was 1998's acclaimedGreat Big Sun--is roundly impressive; the only problem with this yellow bus is that its wheels don't go round and round longer.--Tammy La Gorce