It's generally a long, hard road that the singer-songwriter travels, but Ronald Eldon Sexsmith seems to have suffered for his art more than most.

Praise by the cognoscenti has never translated into record sales. Daniel Lanois, perhaps most widely known for producing Wrecking Ball for Emmylou Harris, replaced Sexsmith's longtime producer Mitchell Froom for his latest offering, Blue Boy, only to drop it when U2 sought his services. Steve Earle took it over, but the label refused to release the finished product. After a year of legal wrangling, Cooking Vinyl put it out to less than universal critical acclaim. Oh, and Sexsmith's wife of 15 years finally left him.

It would be neat - but entirely untrue - to remark that the depression cited by his spouse as her reason for departing isn't reflected in Sexsmith's songs. Sure, the melodies sometimes bounce along quite happily - there's even, optimistically, a single, 'Just My Heart Talking' - but this is essentially a man with tombs in his eyes, even if some of the songs he punches are dreaming.

Maybe Sexsmith, the Tim Hardin of his generation, still has to write something as perfect as 'Reason To Believe' to unassailably cement himself as the angstmeister of the 30 and 40-somethings. In the meantime, though, I'll settle for 'Cheap Hotel', an outstanding track with an unsettling riff reminiscent of Ewen Carruthers' 'Postcard From Monrovia' and an admirably economical (if hopeless) indictment of wife-beating: 'Thy will be done/On earth as it is in hell'. Ron Sexsmith is at MUSU on December 2.

Dave Tuxford

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