Express Witness – MSN Music Robert Christgau

Formally, the biracial Coney Islander is a singer-songwriter in the manner of his artistic contemporary Bruce Springsteen and his college buddy Lou Reed‑-a singer-songwriter who needs a drummer. Jeffreys is a good guy with loyal friends who made a small name for himself in Europe but faded from view in his hometown 20 years ago. Now at 67 he beats the odds by surpassing 1973’s Garland Jeffreys, 1977’s Ghost Writer, and all their lesser successors. Doing right by titles like “I’m Alive” and “In God’s Waiting Room,” it’s another mortality album, and sure as bank fees there’ll be more. But the good ones will all be different. Although in his in-between way Jeffreys was on reggae early, the only attempted skank here is a pointedly entitled economic crisis song called “All Around the World” that you’ll wish bit down as hard as the not-dead-yet “‘Til John Lee Hooker Calls Me.” Boogieing with a quickness, Jeffreys believes “Rock and Roll Music” will pick you up off the floor at 64, and Dylan guitarist Larry Campbell backs up this idea throughout. But Campbell isn’t on his Eurohit cover of David Essex’s schlock classic “Rock On,” and Jeffreys rocks on all over it anyway. A MINUS