On this fourth full-length release (fifth if you count the album he did as Ronny Elliott and Loco Siempre), Elliott proves that he is indeed a local treasure, as devoted to music history as he is to his own tangy, rough-hewn and mellow muse. He's most at home carving country ballads out of his own story, as he does on "Born in 1947," relating it to the inner workings of the pop world over tipsy rhythms and a mournful sax howl. Elliott also scores with a backwoods balladeer treatment of the tale of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen ("Room 100"). But the self-explanatory "Irish Rockabilly Blues" proves that Elliott and his Nationals can stretch with the best of them. (Blue Heart, www.ronnyelliott.com)
—Stefanie Kalem
This article appears in Feb 15-21, 2001.