Pumping life into songs that as idiosyncratic a songwriting talent as Randy Newman birthed long ago is a challenge many performers have botched. But Aaron Neville has no such problem in his spellbinding cover of Newman's flood epic "Louisiana 1927" on Warm Your Heart, his first full-length solo outing in twenty years. With elegance and ease, the 100-proof tenor latches onto the song's laid-back urgency and carries it right out the door. In the end, it's hard to believe that "Louisiana 1927" ever belonged to Newman at all.

Warm Your Heart is a moody album packed with some extraordinary, transcendent moments. Alongside Carlos Vega's hypnotic drums and Ry Cooder's dreamy slide guitar, Neville turns John Hiatt's "It Feels Like Rain" into a wicked ode to girls and the elements. Get him around the incomparable Dr. John's brakeless piano and he effortlessly delivers the casual howl of the album's title cut. And Plas Johnson's tenor sax pours fuel on Neville's fire in a sultry version of New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint's "That's the Way She Loves."

Predictably, coproducer Linda Ronstadt and Neville do indulge in some token flirty numbers ("Close Your Eyes," "Everybody Plays the Fool") that seem ripe for the VH1 airwaves. Neville also duets with Rita Coolidge on Jimmy Buffett's "La Vie Dansante." But it is Neville's peerless songs of conviction, not his pairings with divas divine, that make Warm Your Heart a tempestuous lesson in love and faith.

With a street-choir tinge, Neville turns "I Bid You Goodnight" into a sweet devotional, and his "Ave Maria" is simply overwhelming. At a very young age, Aaron Neville must have taken the meaning of the gospel deep into his heart. Anyone who so powerfully uses the gift of his voice to transform songs into angelic spirituals must have seen the light as soon as he saw the day. (RS 610)

CHUCK DEAN