Chuck Prophet first came to semi-prominence in the mid-‘80s when he joined countrified California rockers Green On Red, and has since pursued a varied career as a singer-songwriter, session man, and producer (Kelly Willis’sTranslated From Love, for instance). His ninth solo album, ¡Let Freedom Ring!, is bar-band rock of a high order: smart, loud, funny, simple, pissed off, but also sentimental in that last-call sort of way. It’s also attuned to Great Recession anxiety and passionately pro-underdog (a typical line: “She was unwanted in 17 states”), most notably on the Randy Newman-meets-Tom Verlaine ballad “You and Me Baby (Holding On),” whose backing harmonies and soaring bridge get me every time. With the Mad Ripple. (Photo by Kelly Stoltz)

Fri., Oct. 15, 8 p.m., 2010