****

It seems like just yesterday when BR549 was shaking up Nashville, playing real honky-tonk music down on Lower Broadway and reminding Music City what country really is. But it was a decade ago, give or take a year, when the band that takes its name from Junior Samples’ “Hee Haw” phone number was playing in the window of Robert’s Western World.

Over that decade, BR549 has seen the departure of two original members, a temporary breakup, the departure of two replacements and a stint by multi-instrumentalist Don Herron in Bob Dylan’s band. But the band’s always kept the rockin’ country coming, live and on record.

Now honed to a quartet led by singer/songwriter/guitarist Chuck Mead, BR549 is back with another excellent record, “Dog Days.”

Kicking off with the banjo-drenched, bluegrassy, evils of drinking on “Poison,” “Dog Days” romps and roars through all sorts of country styles, highlighting Herron’s talents with a more acoustic flavor than previous releases, but never losing its drive, edge and entertainment value.

 Mead gives a nod to Elvis on “The Devil & Me,” swapping vocals with the Jordanaires on a track that’s pure Southern gospel and, not surprisingly, reminiscent of the King,

New bassist Mark Miller takes the vocal chores on “You Are the Queen,” a funny little western swing number about married life that lets Herron do his thing on pedal steel and even has a little ‘a-ha’ from somebody, paying tribute to Bob Wills, who, in Texas, is still the king.

“Cajun Persuasion” turns Herron loose on fiddle, and when Mead and co-writer Guy Clark delineate the band’s early history in “Lower Broad St. Blues,” the band turns to a little uptown, jazzy blues — entirely cool and unexpected.

A Lawrence, Kan., native, Mead brings the “first-hand knowledge of an innocent man” to “Bottom of Priority,” a bouncy, biting protest song about imprisoned Native activist Leonard Peltier. Even with its heavy lyrics, “Bottom of Priority” is a slip-sliding dance record.

And, as always with BR549, there’s plenty of humor on the disc, including the wry, jazz-inflected closer, “Let Jesus Make You Breakfast.”

Mead’s “Leave It Alone” is a cousin to Dave Edmunds’ “A-1 On the Jukebox” that the boys cover with verve. To my ears, these are rock ’n’ roll songs — if you know anything about the history of real rock ’n’ roll, it came out of country as much or more than it came from the blues.

BR549 isn’t ever going to sell millions and headline arenas like the popsters who masquerade as country stars these days. But Mead and company are the real deal and they deliver multi-faceted roots country with style on the superb “Dog Days.”

— L. Kent Wolgamott

Lincoln Journal Star

Freebo

“Before the Separation”

***

Best known for a long career as a sideman to some of rock’s biggest names, including a decade as bassist for Bonnie Raitt, Freebo has stepped up into a new role — singer-songwriter. It suits him well.

“Before the Separation,” the L.A.-based ex-Philadelphian’s third album, flows with a compassionate spirit rooted in ’60s ideals, but packing a gently urgent relevancy. The songs are built on Freebo’s acoustic guitar and fretless bass, giving them a sublimely folkish foundation that occasionally heads off into rock and soul (the horn-kissed “The Beauty of Life”). The finale, “The Freedom Wall,” shows that, in addition to an engaging earnestness, Freebo is also capable of biting irony.

— Nick Cristiano

Knight Ridder Newspapers

Lil Wayne

“Tha Carter II”

***½

As the last of the Hot Boys on Cash Money, the label’s new chief Lil Wayne Carter wears his Southern style with pride. Yet for this Carter, the nasty N’Awlins native with the thug-mad drawl and the money-hungry lyrical esprit does the unthinkable: He drops producer Mannie Fresh, overlord of Cash’s steel-meets-rubber noise.

Wayne flourishes with the change, taking hungrily to both his usual scorched-earth slap (“Fireman”) as well as the smoother soul-hop hooks of “Grown Man” and the blaxploitative “Hustler Musik” with a freaky new rhyme scheme. Through the spare psychedelic R&B of “Shooter,” the stammering reggae of “Mo Fire” and the rousing, soul-sampling “Receipt,” Wayne morphs handsomely into a freestyle storyteller before our very ears.

Like another president Carter (Def Jam prez Jay-Z), Wayne gets better every album.

— A.D. Amorosi

Knight Ridder Newspapers

Morningwood

“Morningwood”

*½

Imagine some ’90s A&R heavy who’s 0-for-the-’00s cruising MySpace.com and checking out “The O.C.,” trying to gauge what the kids are into.

“They want a mix of hooks, promiscuity and some of that grimy New York rock,” he surmises. Then his 13-year-old son suggests the perfect band name: Morningwood.

New York’s Morningwood may not have been assembled that way, but when ex-members of the Wallflowers, Cibo Matto and Spacehog team with a potty-mouthed punk siren like Chantel Claret, and the results sound like a mash-up of Hole and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, it feels like opportunism knocking.

Opportunism occasionally produces candy-coated goodness like “Nth Degree.” Just try deleting it from your memory.

Then try keeping a straight face for flaccid bedtime stories like “Babysitter” and scenester-baiting rants sung by someone who’s probably cleared a few downtown karaoke parties in her day.

— Patrick Berkery

Knight Ridder Newspapers

Imogen Heap

“Speak for Yourself”

***

You may have heard her on the “Garden State” soundtrack (as singer of Frou Frou’s “Let Go”) or via “The O.C.,” but with her sophomore solo effort (after a United Kingdom-only debut), Imogen Heap seems poised for a critical, if not commercial, breakthrough that will put a name with that often-haunting voice.

The 27-year-old Brit’s self-produced record — she refinanced her London flat to pay for it — shows off not only her ethereal vocals (think Dido with a kick), but also her dreamy, electro-pop melodies, which incorporate layers of swirling keyboards, bells and drum machines. In a series of intimate, breathy vignettes about love embraced and discarded, highlights include the darkly sensual “Headlock,” the hymnlike “Hide and Seek,” and the rhythm-fueled “Loose Ends,” whose driving synchs are offset by Heap’s moody meditation on a collapsing relationship.

— Nicole Pensiero

Knight Ridder Newspapers

Mountin Reunion

“Something Like Now”

***

Two French twin brothers assemble a quartet that sounds like a mix of Weather Report and Pat Metheny.

Bassist Francois Moutin and drummer Louis Moutin, who earned advanced degrees in physics and mathematics before turning to jazz more than a decade ago, create a heady stew that is challenging and surprisingly orthodox in its search for improvised magic.

Francois, who has played with Philly-raised musicians Archie Shepp and Randy Brecker, plays his bass with Jaco-like insouciance, while Louis, a veteran of groups with Michel Legrand and John Abercrombie, is an impassioned timekeeper. The twins, who wrote 10 of the 11 tunes here, have a wild time negotiating a Charlie Parker tune, “Bird’s Medley,” as a duet.

Tenor saxophonist Rick Margitza often takes the lead, blowing cacophonous lines of great intensity, while pianist Pierre de Bethmann keeps grounded a quartet that is highly intellectual and still ardent.

— Karl Stark

Knight Ridder Newspapers

Doris Spears

“The Duchess: Jazz & Juke Joints”

***

Spears proves to be a sultry handful. The vocalist, who was hired by bandleader Lionel Hampton and iconic Chicago saxophonist Von Freeman back in the day, ranges from lusty to downright reverential on this release by the Philly-based Dreambox label.

A talented group of sidemen accompany her, including drummer Cecil Brooks III, saxophonist David Murray and vibraphonist Steve Nelson.

But Spears is the focal point, showing a jaunty step on Steve Allen’s “This Could Be the Start of Something Big.” She lets out the beast in a rocking country way on a horn-laden original, “Ode to a Whore.” And she could be in church for the anthemlike “To My Friends and Family.”

The session is pretty conventional R&B with jazz licks tossed in. But Spears doesn’t need tricks to show her stuff.

— K.S.