*** Chuck Brodsky

LETTERS IN THE DIRT

(Red House)

Chuck Brodsky takes few chances on his second album, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. He relies on straightforward narratives, simple hooks and melodies, and a soft-spoken if occasionally wry approach for these dozen well-crafted, mostly acoustic originals, adding two more baseball-themed tunes to his repertoire: "The Ballad of Eddie Klepp," the nifty tale of the first ballplayer to cross the color line in the opposite direction ("A white man in the Negro Leagues might as well have been a Jew"), and the title track, ostensibly about former Phillie Richie Allen but really about baseball's loss of innocence.

Other highlights are the comical "Long Story Short," in which a blowhard gets his due, and "Talk to My Lawyer," a riff on litigiousness gone insane. Brodsky accompanies his crisply expressive, somewhat pinched, John Prine-like tenor with rhythmic guitar-picking. Bass, dobro and an occasional fiddle and Hammond B-3 lick complete the simple mix.

-- Seth Rogovoy