NANCI Griffith, the Texan torchbearer of folkabilly, has returned to her spiritual home of Rounder Records after 16 years, many albums on from Last Of The True Believers, her 1986 masterpiece.

A year ago to the week, her York Barbican Centre concert confirmed her restoration to physical and musical health after cancer treatment, playing songs from the Clock Without Hands album as nature intended with campaigning zeal and heartstrings fully extended. However, all those portents for Winter Marquee are confounded by this new live album being polished and pleasant rather than magical. Recorded at the Tennessee Theater in Knoxville on May 29 2002 with her stalwart Blue Moon Orchestra, it falls prey to anaemic, tasteful production. Four songs new to the Griffith set list spark up interest, especially Julie Gold's Good Night, New York, with Emmylou Harris on harmony vocals. Griffith is still noble, still exploring music and issues old and new, but this concert recording sounds like one of those nights it was better to be there.

Singer, songwriter and long-time New Jersey radio presenter Laura Cantrell lives in New York City but her Nashville birthplace shines through her country folk with a pop hook: beguiling, soulful, softly sung vignettes with wise lyrics in the tradition of Nanci Griffiths in her unvarnished days. This follow-up to her tender 2000 debut Not The Tremblin' Kind is better still, a collection of covers and four originals both happy and sad, slow and strolling, immediate yet lingering. At 34, Cantrell is a rose in full bloom.

Updated: 09:20 Thursday, October 24, 2002