Back in issues 22 and 23 I reviewed two Rosalie Sorrels CDs, the latter being Be Careful There's a Baby in the House. Last summer my next-older sister had her first baby, and I made a point of giving the new mother this CD. If Eli doesn't turn out OK, it won't be my fault.

Well now Rosalie has done it again. This is her newest CD, and it's another winner. About it, she says, "This album started out as a children's album, but in making it I have come to think of it as a conversation between an old woman... me and a child... me."

What makes Rosalie Sorrels so special is the intensely personal nature of her performances and recorded work. What makes her recent albums so special is the way she seems to be redefining the medium, blending music, poetry, prose, and reminiscence.

This is all a bit tough to get across in a written review, so as an experiment in multimedia technology I have recorded two 30 second segments of the CD to my Mac, and, if space in this issue of Archipelago is not at a premium, John will distribute them. Those of you with reasonably-configured Macintoshes will be able to hear Rosalie Sorrels by double-clicking on the files, titled "When much in the woods" and "Turn Around". The former is a spoken bit, from a poem by Emily Dickinson. The latter is a piece of a song composed by Malvina Reynolds.

[Editor's note: I was able to include the Dickinson poem as a self-extracting archive. Just double-click on the "Woods.SEA" icon to unstuff it. Those of you running under System 7 can hear the poem by double-clicking on the extracted sound file.]