Producer Gary Nicholson, who has worked with everyone from Etta James to George Jones, makes the CD sound both perfect and real, and he and others have some co-writing credits. But this is Knight's show, the product of one man's skilfully honed, often damning vision.

Kobo Town, InDependence

Photo by Matt Howe

Toronto-based reggae-calypso band Kobo Town, brainchild of Trinidadian singer, songwriter and bandleader Drew Gonsalves, is named for the old Port-of-Spain neighborhood that birthed traditional calypso. Though the band's sound is best described as pan-Caribbean, its inspiration and subject matter have firm roots in the history of Gonsalves's native land, of whose turbulent history he speaks with poetic specificity and force.

In "Trinity" he looks down on the land from an airplane: "Her clothes were torn, and her shirt was all tattered/Her eyes downcast, every hope and joy scattered/Dream of my past, bright memory shattered/but I adore her still 'cause I know that all that don't matter." In other songs ("Abatina," "Beautiful Soul") he focusses closer in, examining the lives of individuals. And in "Blood and Fire" he casts his eye on the wider stage of the whole suffering world: "From Gaza to Jaffna, blood and fire/Soweto to Rio, blood and fire...What must fall to be free, blood and fire."

But Gonsalves and his able eight-piece band couch the messages in bouncing beats that elevate the spirit. Flute and violin lines slither through the clever arrangements; Gonsalves himself handles the guitar and cuatro; and Kellylee Evans contributes some laserlike guest vocals. Fans of Caribbean music, world music in general, and meaningful songwriting should grab this CD when it's released next month (check this space for an announcement) - it's a beauty.

OUT AND ABOUT: You can read a little about my trip to Nashville here. Since then I've been more out like a light than out and about. Zzzz... wake me up when the Foley scandal is over.