Bonnie and Linda and Emmylou

Don't look now, but we're going through a small renaissance of women singer/songwriters. And I don't mean Aimee Mann or Shawn Colvin (or--Gawd!--Jewel). Tonight driving home listening to Sirius, and their "Sirius Disorder" channel played a few winners in a row--one from Bonnie Raitt's new album, one from Ronstadt & Emmylou's Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions. Formula ain't that hard: get roots music musician together with Tchad Blake or Mitchell Froom or one of those cool noise guys. But where they seemed to dilute what's greatest about Los Lobos (their instrumental firepower) while broadening their range of styles (hey, these roots rockers do electronica! just like Jeff Tweedy will!) , they seem to do wonders for making slightly weathered roots-based women singers sound newly creative and state-of-the art.

Anyway, I've always loved Bonnie's voice. No matter how bland the backing or the songs were, she sang and play with heart and soul and never ever showed off her chops. Conversely, Linda, who was only too happy to show off her chops, never sounded better than when she was showing off those chops along with Emmy's voice.