**1/2 Palace Music

LOST BLUES AND OTHER SONGS

(Drag City)

Authenticity has never been a reliable measuring stick of talent, especially in a medium as bastardized as rock. John Fogerty wasn't really born on the bayou, Bob Dylan's given surname was Zimmerman, and, yes, Will "Palace" Oldham was raised in the relatively urbane Kentucky town of Louisville, not the rugged hills of Appalachia. But over the course of four CDs, numerous name variations (Palace Brothers, Palace Songs, Palace Music, and just plain Palace), several EPs, and a bunch of singles, Oldham has appropriated the sound and feel of back-porch blues and Depression-era country better than most.

Lost Blues and Other Songs offers evidence of his unique gift for digging Americana's gnarled roots in the form of 15 Palace odds and ends collected from singles and outtakes. He covers a lot of weathered ground, from the Rust Never Sleeps-style Youngian psychodrama of "Riding" to the gentlemanly country gait of "Horses" (the Mekons tune) to the lo-fi, cracked-voice ramblings of "Stable Will." The stark, sometimes brooding selections don't so much map out a progression as allude to a history Oldham has created for himself. Time hasn't healed the singer's wounds, but it has given them a very real aura of authenticity.

-- Matt Ashare