While Frazey Ford of the Be Good Tanyas spent the year raising her new baby, band mate Trish Klein had time to record a second record with her other group. Like on their first record, Po' Girl takes the Tanyas' kitchen-sink mix of rustic sounds and adds a blues tinge. Musicians have always fused music from different genres, but now a full generation has grown up barely aware of musical boundaries. The age bracket that spawned Po' Girl is equally at home with country, rock, jazz, R&B, hip-hop, and punk. They are even able to seamlessly add a rapper to the half-time country tune "Take the Long Way" without a hint of preciousness---a rapper that name-checks Patti Smith no less. --Michael Ross
