Friday, March 25, 2005; Page WE07

The White Stripes' strange take on the blues inspired John Doe to get out his old Howlin' Wolf records and figure out what his take on the blues might be. The result was "Forever Hasn't Happened Yet," the best solo album of his career. The blues, it turns out, stiffens and buzzes Doe's country-folk sensibility in much the same way that punk rock did back in the late '70s and early '80s, when he was co-leader of X. The blues today, as punk did then, give his pastoral melodies a tough urban rhythm and hand his literary narratives a bracing dose of realism.

Even though four songs are written in the traditional 12-bar format, "Forever Hasn't Happened Yet" is not an album that blues purists would ever claim; it's too romantic and bohemian for that. Yet you can hear the echo of the Wolf's Hubert Sumlin in the guitar parts played by Doe, ex-bandmate Dave Alvin, Smokey Hormel and Grant Lee Phillips; you can hear Robert Johnson's bleakness in songs such as "Ready," a eulogy for musician drug casualties such as Darby Crash, Jeffrey Lee Pierce and Elliott Smith, and "Heartless," a ruthless stomp with Bo Diddley-like maracas.

Three songs offer the sonic relief of acoustic country-blues, but three other songs reveal the common ground between Wolf and X by enlisting three women -- Neko Case, Kristin Hersh and Doe's own daughter Veronica -- to wail a high harmony above Doe as Exene Cervenka once did in X. On the new song "Hwy. 5," Case actually sings Cervenka's lyrics about "sleeping fully dressed . . . in that jail."

Nick Luca has contributed guitar and engineering to the albums of fellow Tucsonites Howe Gelb and Calexico, and they return the favor by supplementing the Nick Luca Trio (Luca, bassist Chris Giambelluca and drummer Jim Kober) on its debut release, "Little Town." But the disc shares little of the roots-rock associated with Gelb, Calexico and Doe; instead Luca sings his minimalist lyrics about lonely urban nights in whispery murmurs over dreamy tempos and atmospheric backgrounds that borrow from both cool jazz and ambient techno music. He captures that peculiar, post-midnight mood when you're still awake after the rest of the city has fallen asleep, but neither his melodies nor his lyrics are sharp enough to turn that mood into stories.

-- Geoffrey Himes

Appearing Monday at Iota. • To hear a free Sound Bite from John Doe, call Post-Haste at 301-313-2200 and press 8125; to hear the Nick Luca Trio, press 8126. (Prince William residents, call 703-690-4110.)