LEVON HELM ***
Dirt Farmer Dirt Farmer Music/Vanguard
Having survived throat cancer, bankruptcy and a fire that nearly destroyed his barn/studio, it’s a wonder former Band drummer/singer Levon Helm is still standing, let alone able to rustle up an album. This is rustic, rural stuff: four of 13 tunes are traditional, the rest of them (all covers) might as well be, and Helm twice skins it down to just backwoods-harmony voices and a fiddle. I’d rather hear Bill Monroe and The Carter Family do these old songs, but it’s still an unexpected, joyous rediscovery to hear Helm’s loose-limbed drumming and distinctive (if thinner) voice again. Never knew I missed it… till now. HOWARD DRUCKMAN

CORB LUND *****
Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier!
Stony Plain Records/Warner Music Canada
It was inevitable that this former rodeo rider would record a horse album; the surprise is, it’s also a war album. Lund tells spooky tales about mercenary Contras in El Salvador with murky, murderous agendas (“Student Visas”); horse soldiers throughout history (the title track); the appeal of a call to arms (“I Wanna Be in the Cavalry,” which opens the album); and the horrific consequences of that call (the slow reprise of “Cavalry,” which closes it). The music is catchy and tight throughout, plus Lund experiments with orchestral strings and mariachi horns, and even lightens up for a few novelty tunes. All great, as usual. HD

DWIGHT YOAKAM ***
Dwight Sings Buck New West Records
Having worked with Buck Owens in their “Streets of Bakersfield” single and video some 20-odd years ago, Dwight Yoakam now honours the late Owens with a heartfelt tribute album. Vocally, Yoakam’s never sounded loose ’n’ goose-ier, as befits Owens’ big-voiced original style, especially on such classic, three-minute, country-pop gems as “My Heart Skips a Beat” and “Under Your Spell Again” — though his cover of “Act Naturally” owes as much to The Beatles’ version as to Buck’s. Docked a few points for including a slow-ass, plodding interpretation of “Close Up the Honky Tonks,” and not including “Tired of Livin’,” one of Owens’ best-ever songs. HD

KEN WHITELEY ***
One World Dance Borealis
Balancing blues, folk and gospel in settings that range from full-band-with-horns to solo-acoustic, Ken Whiteley is a roots-rockin’ man for all seasons. All of it is solid and sincere, and Whiteley’s a decent enough songwriter, but he’s at his most passionate and powerful when he’s cutting his own fine take on traditional tunes. That is, when he’s howling the gutbucket blues over his resonator slide guitar (“Death Letter Blues”), working his knack for real-gone gospel (“That’s Alright”) or doing both simultaneously (“Two Wings”). Kudos as well to guitar-meister Amos Garrett and pianist Joe Sealy, who each provide top-ranking instrumental prowess on the tracks in which they’re featured. HD

ROBERT PLANT
& ALISON KRAUSS ****
Raising Sand Rounder/Universal
Could it be that reuniting Led Zeppelin is only the second-most interesting thing Robert Plant does this year? After all, what sounds like more fun: grinding up against an aged Jimmy Page or trading suggestive come-ons with bluegrass belle Krauss? The self-satisfied grins ol’ Percy flashes throughout Raising Sand’s liners tell you the answer.  Loosened up by hearty dollops of producer T-Bone Burnett’s Cajun grease, the unlikely but perfectly complementary duo enthusiastically excavate various cult-hero calling cards (Gene Clark’s “Polly Come Home,” Townes Van Zandt’s “Nothin’”), early rock standards (The Everly Brothers’ “Gone, Gone, Gone”) and R&B warhorses (“Fortune Teller”). But it’s the contribution from a less-celebrated tunesmith — a swooning duet on Chris Isaak sideman Rowland Salley’s “Killing the Blues” — that ultimately justifies the whole exercise. SB

THE RED STICK
RAMBLERS ***
Made in the Shade Sugar Hill
The Red Stick Ramblers deliver hot twin-fiddle Louisiana action with touches of Western swing, Owen Bradley balladry and — on the closing epic “Smeckled Suite” — some sunbaked Spanish guitars that come off like early Calexico jamming with Dirty Three. No need for a hipster alert, however, as The Red Stick Ramblers are traditionalists through and through, right down to the front-porch recording of the inevitable instrumental entitled “Katrina.” They can be squeaky clean country folk when they wanna be, but The Red Stick Ramblers sound best when they fire up the fiddles at the forefront and “Laisse les Cajuns Danser.” MB