Album Reviews

** Steve Forbert, “Mission of the Crossroad Palms,” Paladin/Giant. Forbert can hardly keep from chuckling over his own good sense. Just listen to his songs of workin’ man’s blues and travels down the highway. Too bad his earnest rasp and sleepy folk-rock only amount to Springsteen-lite. Forbert (who plays McCabe’s on June 16) escapes that rut just once--on the moving “Oh, To Be Back With You.”

New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).