Wake as Woman

There was a time when swing-oriented jazz, R&B and blues overlapped to form an accessible yet intelligent style of music. In the late '40s Louis Jordan, Charles Brown and Amos Milburn were popular figures and Floyd Dixon (although a bit in their shadow) was not far behind. When rock & roll suddenly took over pop music in the mid-'50s, the middle-aged black performers were tossed off the charts in favor of their younger white imitators and work began to become scarce. Fortunately Floyd Dixon survived the lean years and, as with Charles Brown, he made a "comeback." This CD is a definitive Floyd Dixon release, mixing together older hits (including his signature tune "Hey, Bartender") with newer originals; all 16 selections were written or co-composed by Dixon.

A Woman a Man Walked By arrived just a year and a half after PJ Harvey's equally difficult and brilliant White Chalk. That alone makes it notable, since the last time she released albums in such quick succession was the early to mid-'90s, around the same time of her last songwriting collaboration with John Parish, Dance Hall at Louse Point. That album's unbridled experiments provided a sharp contrast to the subversive polish of its predecessor, To Bring You My Love; while A Woman a Man Walked By isn't quite as overt an about-face from White Chalk, the difference is still distinct. Here, Harvey and Parish (who played on and co-produced White Chalk) trade sublime, sustained eeriness for freewheeling vignettes that cover a wider range of sounds and moods than her music has in years.