Former member of alt-country godfathers Green On Red and musical experimenter deluxe Chuck Prophet’s second album for New West, Age Of Miracles, came out a year ago but is definitely worth a quick re-visit. Building on the hippety-hoppy, funked-out, rocked up, smoothed-down grooves of his last knock-out release, No Other Love, Prophet and "long-suffering wife/bandmate" Stephanie Finch (along with keyboardist Jason Borger, Red Meat alum/pedal steel whiz Max Butler, four bassists, five drummers, a beatbox and a programmer) gleefully continue to break all the rules here.

The lyrics at first seem deceptively simple-straight-forward love songs or story-songs or thematic current event songs or dark, cosmic-surfer songs-but upon closer listen, one finds Prophet to be among the rarest of song-writing talents: One who’s able to meld the sage observations of the omnipotent Outsider with the painful, all-too-human declarations of what he calls "... the smallest man in the world ..." to create tunes that let the listener both peer autonomously into fascinating tales and simultaneously experience the emotions of the subjects thereof.

He probably nails his own wonderfully twisted psyche and gloriously original oeuvre best in his own words: "All roads lead to Dylan I suppose, beyond that, if I mention one influence I’d have to leave out a hundred. One definite influence on this record is my increasingly acute awareness that we’re living in the modern age. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not about to throw my laptop into the river any day soon. I’d probably end up developing some kind of a tic without it. There’s just no time. No time to daydream, even less time to think. Fast food express lines, meth?paced TV, medications marketed to women who ‘have no time for yeast infections’ (as if the rest of us have the time). Genetically cloning the family pet, prescription miracle drugs, mad cows, madder scientists ... watch those carbs! The psychosis! On second thought, I wouldn’t have it any other way." Neither would we, Chuck. Neither would we.

That’s it for this time ‘round, ‘Dial-heads! Tune in next week for a few more New West reviews, and don’t forget to kick Old Man Time in the ass for Tommy this New Year’s Eve ... Until next year-make yer own damn news.

Who put the bomp in the bomp shooby dooby bomp? / Who put the ram in the rama lama ding dong?

Listening to Chuck Prophet sing these lyrics, it's not hard to believe that maybe Chuck himself did. Age of Miracles is the latest in a string of four incredibly strong albums since 1997's Homemade Blood. But as satisfied as he is with the work, Prophet is in no mood for playing the artiste. "This one was tough, very tough," he says. "I need to stop making a record every 18 months." Even so, for all the stress and strain of a creative process that involves producing, writing and playing an orchestra's worth of instruments, Prophet has managed another minor masterpiece, something purely American but entirely genre-blurring, something derivative yet far, far beyond simple derivation. The album is a huge vat of pop-music influences that may appear at any moment in tracks that are instantly catchy and always vaguely familiar, in a primordial-soup way. Besides his wicked Fender Squire fretwork and the nasty elasticity of his suggestive voice, Prophet lays on an array of sounds that range from garage-rock Farfisa organ to torrid night-of-sin horns.

The album is full of tunes co-written with some of the biggest names in the business, and nowhere is the collaborative effort more successful than on the dark, surly "Pin a Rose on Me" (Kim Richey), the Neil Sedaka-meets-the Ronnettes bouncy Brill Building love song "Just to See You Smile (Angelo, Kim Carnes) and the funk-laden "Heavy Duty" (Dan Penn). But the ultimate highlights are purely Prophet's, like the rip-your-brain-out licks of "Automatic Blues," the straight-from-the-Tenderloin lyrical slyness of "You Did" or the sinfully fun "Monkee in the Middle." Fifteen years beyond his tour of duty in pioneering insurgent country outfit Green On Red, Chuck Prophet continues to put the hip in the hippie hippie shake.

Chuck Prophet is a regular on World Cafe, a radio show found on WUWM. The host's song of choice is the title track of this bluesy rock album. "Age of Miracles" is best described as beautiful. Each song has a different feel as Prophet does everything to hold the listeners attention.

Pairing Prophet with LA’s roots-centric New West label (home of the Drive-By Truckers, Tim Easton, etc.) might strike you as peculiar until you consider that the singer-songwriter in question can be pretty peculiar himself, at least when it comes to mashing up genres. Ever since his days two decades ago playing guitar for cosmic country junkies Green on Red, Prophet has followed his own many-forked musical path. He’s been invited to open shows for both Lucinda Williams and Heart (who covered his "No Other Love"), and his seventh solo album features contributions from folks who’ve worked with PJ Harvey, Frank Black, the Mekons, and My Morning Jacket. All of which should tell you something about the man’s range, not to mention his taste.

AOM is a multi-colored brush stroke of taut rock moves ("Automatic Blues"), blue-eyed soul ("Heavy Duty," which nicks a recurring piano figure from the Beatles’ "Hey Bulldog"), and radio-primed modernist pop ("West Memphis Moon"). "You’ve Got Me Where You Want Me" recalls Sea Change–era Beck, who may be Prophet’s closest pan-genre contemporary. (Prophet’s drowsy-with-a-cold vocals also echo Beck’s.) No matter what territory he’s staking out, Prophet’s guitar playing is both tasty and tasteful, and a battery of support - from Wurlitzer organ and Moog synthesizer to horns, and a bona fide string section - keeps the sound wide and lush yet wonderfully intimate. Miracles just about lives up to its title: it’s eclectic and cohesive, fresh and classic.

Chuck Prophet doesn't need a map to get around in Austin. He's so familiar with the city, it almost sounds as if he lives here.

The San Franciscan has done his share of South By Southwests, and a reference to South Congress Avenue slides easily off his lips. But the bigger deal is his affiliation with Austin- and Los Angeles-based New West Records, which just released "Age of Miracles," his second album under that label.

New West propelled Prophet's irresistible "Summertime Thing," from his pinnacle album, 2002's "No Other Love," into an adult album alternative radio hit. (KGSR 107.1 is the local representative of that format). After seven years of playing guitar in the hard country-rock band Green on Red, and another 12 years trying to crack North America as a solo artist in the soul/pop-rock/funk/dirty blues/mild hip-hop/etc. vein, Prophet had no expectations of even getting airplay.

Chuck Prophet, who stretches over many eras and genres, has a new album out and a gig Oct. 9 at the Continental Club.

"We had a brief meeting about how to market it and promote it. I suggested we all stand in a circle and hold hands and pray," he laughs. He was stunned when the New West gang told him they were serious.

"Getting on the radio was the kind of advice my Dad gives," Prophet says. Imitating his father, Prophet intones, " 'Son, what you need to do is get on the radio.' It's like, 'Thanks, Dad. Maybe we can get together and have a panel at South By Southwest. Or better yet, you go and tell me what you learned.' "

Ah, there's that Prophet wit. He shares doses of it throughout the interview, as well as in his songs. His explanation of what happened after "Summertime Thing" took off goes, "Instead of seeing five guys with beards, we started playing to, like 25 girls in tube tops. And nobody was complaining. Not even Stephanie, my wife."

Stephanie Finch is the band member behind the Farfisa organ, from which she evokes the unmistakable sound that filled so many '60s hits. Prophet, a seriously wicked guitar player who loves his wah-wah pedal and other effects, often revisits that era for inspiration. Prophet lists Bob Dylan, Randy Newman and Leonard Cohen as his major influences; Brill Building scribes such as Carole King and Jerry Goffin clearly had an impact as well. On "Age of Miracles," he's got a song called "You Did (Bomp Shooby Dooby Bomp)," complete with "shoop-shoops" and triangle dings.

For this album, Prophet had an even more direct link to that era; he co-wrote a song with the legendary songwriter and producer Dan Penn, author of the Box Tops' "Cry Like a Baby," and several Aretha Franklin hits, including "Sweet Inspiration," "Do Right Woman" and "Dark End of the Street."

Years ago, Prophet's acting manager sent him to Nashville to try songwriting (an "incredibly original idea," he notes dryly).

The first time he went, he had a gig at the famed Bluebird Café.

"It turns out I was booked the night of the CMA (Country Music Association) awards, which is like the Super Bowl of country music," Prophet explains. "I was just about ready to take the stage and perform for the doorman and the soundman when Dan Penn showed up. I guess he was the only guy who didn't know it was the CMA awards."

They wound up writing the new album's "Heavy Duty."

Kim Richey is another collaborator; she co-wrote "You've Got Me Where You Want Me" and "Pin a Rose on Me."

"I think it's still a pretty special thing when two people can get together and do that. It doesn't work with everybody," Prophet says. "(But with) somebody like Kim Richey, it's just like fallin' off a log. She has a natural gift for just drawing a straight line."

When Prophet finds he needs a second opinion, he's not shy about asking for help.

"Sometimes," he says, "I have to do what Dan Penn describes as bringing in a couple of people to perform a miracle. It increases your odds."

Prophet does all right by himself, too. "Summertime Thing's" brilliance has as much to do with its vivid lyrical images as it does an incredible melody. For instance:

Go ask your dad for the keys to the Honda
Can your sister come along, how could she not wanna
Put the Beach Boys on, wanna hear "Help Me Rhonda"
Put the Beach Boys on, wanna hear "Help Me Rhonda"
It's a summertime thing ...

Though she's not credited as a co-writer on any songs, Finch has to be a major collaborator as well.

They've been on the road together for so long, he can't remember whether it's been 10 years, or 13 or 14. (His "long-suffering" wife, as he often refers to her, probably gave up expecting anniversary gifts ages ago.)

"Sometimes, it's less of a marriage and more like we're Army buddies," he says. "We get along better the more difficult it is, really. The road kind of brings that out in people."

As his New West/"Summertime Thing" experience proves, it might take a lot of miles, but eventually you can find the place where you belong.

This fun double bill shifted from alternative country that sprouted strong traditional roots to crafty rock and soul mischief. But it was the literary wit circulating in the songs of both artists that fueled the show's finer moments. Fulks remained a country scholar well versed in beefing up vintage covers (I Want To Be Mama'd and Bill Anderson's hardcore honky-tonk anthem Cocktails) while allowing self-effacing sarcasm to creep into the domestic cracks of his own tunes (Countrier Than Thou and Every Kind of Music But Country). Prophet, as usual, remained a rocker who addressed an uncommonly vast pop vocabulary running from the wicked cool of Homemade Blood to the noir-style setting of West Memphis Moon. But it was on 2000's Diamond Jim that all these elements converged: a melodic groove full of soulful bounce, a vocal chorus with deep R&B creases and a guitar hook that was still ringing in your brain half an hour after the concert was over.

Chuck Prophet has been solo since 1990, after establishing his bona fides with California's psychedelic country punks Green on Red. But it's only on his last New West album, "No Other Love" (2002), and "Age of Miracles" (his seventh solo outing), that he has really fulfilled his great artistic potential. Commercial potential is another story: His music is, by design, difficult to classify. The whimsical choice of instruments ranges from guitar to glockenspiels, violins to Moog synths, and usually aim for a bluesy groove. But Prophet's songs are seriously beautiful, charming and unpredictable. Killer track "You Did (Bomp Shooby Dooby Bomp)" reverses the eternal question "Who Put the Bomp?" by placing the unexpected answer first. From the tragic narrative of "West Memphis Moon" to buoyant love song "Just to See You Smile," Prophet keeps the listener engaged and attentively off-balance. In "Smile," he sets up a picnic for his perfect love and brings a pack of firecrackers. Some airplay might get Prophet the explosion he deserves.

While alt.country squandered its moment on vintage gabardine shirts, Chuck Prophet's roots-rock has never needed dressing up, whatever sub-genres he has crossed along his fifteen-year solo career. Not to say Prophet's music is bare -- Age of Miracles, the SF singer and guitarist's sixth album, has Beatlesy strings, bluesy snares, a top hat's worth of synth tricks, and Prophet's own seasoned leads and drawled vocals. It's the sort of virtual orchestra Beck would use for postmodern bachelor-pad music, but Prophet writes the kind of fundamentalist pop songs underrated in the music industry since the mid-'60s: ones that would look good no matter what they're wearing.

If the Brill Building were still in business -- and let's say we have a stage-set view of what goes on inside -- we might catch the Flaming Lips psyching out Miracles' liltingly cynical title track (Gonna eat and drink our fill/Lose that baby fat for real/No secrets left to conceal). In the next window, maybe we'd spot Jack White belting the politics out of "West Memphis Moon" or Rufus Wainwright balladeering "The Smallest Man in the World" into exquisite melodrama. And look, there's the maestro himself on the top floor, counting his money. But here in the real world, Prophet embodies all those elements himself (except the money-counter), still hungry and decking out his songs with his own lush, slightly scruffy sound. Lucky for us, at least.

Age Of Miracles

With his seventh record, "Age of Miracles," Chuck Prophet, crooning like the bastard son of Leonard Cohen and Marianne Faithfull, serves up a potent brew of hip-hop, electric blues, soul, pop-rock and funk. With his knowledge, love and mastery of such disparate influences as Dylan, Brian Wilson, Johnny Cash and Isaac Hayes, the former Green on Red singer-guitarist fuses 11 otherwise wayward, fragmented tracks into a cohesive whole. The chugging "Automatic Blues" churns with a hypnotic cacophony of guitars and car horns, while the title track picks up where Cohen's "Tower of Song" left off, insisting, almost delusionally in the face of the overwhelming darkness of the age nearly upon us, that "there's more to see, all lost time will be retrieved, I know it's true, it's on TV, in the age of miracles." Prophet proves he can deliver a pop hook on "Just to See You Smile," which slips loose with gorgeous, muted guitars shimmering just below the surface. It's "Pet Sounds" meets "Highway 61 Revisited," with the latter seeping through and pooling in the next track. "West Memphis Moon" is, underneath its traditional country gleam, the tortured lament of a brutal child killer who is no more than a child himself, and as dark a song as Dylan or Cash ever wrote. With its electronic country-swamp folk flavor, "Age of Miracles" is a post-modern traveling revival show, setting up just down the road from Wilco's "Yankee Foxtrot Hotel."

Chuck Prophet is on a streak. With a consistency born out of a strong work ethic and an almost obscene amount of pure talent, he's released three great albums in a row. So does his latest record Age of Miracles achieve the standards of Homemade Blood, The Hurting Business and No Other Love? Absolutely. Once again, Prophet and his musicians gracefully paint a rootsy building with modern colors, mixing soul, folk and good old rock & roll with contemporary electronic production methods. So many artists make this combination sound forced or gimmicky, but not Prophet; his style is never less than organic, and this record is no exception. Make no mistake: this is not some singer/songwriter layering his words and guitar solos over pre-programmed backing tracks. Real instruments are the foundation of every cut; the lush mixing, electro-flavored arrangements and ability to pick just the right effect put what might have been an extraordinary roots rock record into a universe of its own. Of course, all this is merely gravy on the main course: songcraft. Though an accomplished bandleader and a white-hot guitar picker, Prophet has always subsumed flash in service to the song, and his tunes here add more classics to his catalog. The slinky R&B of "Pin a Rose on Me" and "You Did (Bomp Shooby Dooby Bomp)" shares worthy space with the heartfelt balladry of "Solid Gold" and "You've Got Me Where You Want Me." Rock groovers like "Automatic Blues" and "Heavy Duty" use quirkiness the way actor Johnny Depp does: as flavor, not a substitute for lack of substance. Prophet sneaks some social commentary into his usual examinations of the dance of the sexes; "West Memphis Moon" looks at the infamous West Memphis Three and the deeply sarcastic title track tunefully surveys the state of America. One could argue that Prophet does nothing here that he hasn't done in his most recent work, and that's a valid point. But since Prophet's music sounds like little else out there and it's of consistently high quality, that's mere carping at nothing. Age of Miracles is yet another brilliant record from a great American artist.