He's tall. He sings in a deep, weathered baritone. He's been a member of the Kingston Trio, a songwriter for the Monkees ("Daydream Believer") and a solo performer with country and folk leanings who has released over a dozen albums on five different labels over the past two decades. He writes larger-than-life, sometimes corny tales of American byways from Nashville to L.A. His common images are of wind and fire and trains rushing across open fields. And he's a friend of the Kennedys'. In other words, John Stewart is an archetypal American singer-songwriter – albeit one who's been mostly ignored.

But that saga of commercial ups (the 1979 hit "Gold") and downs (most everything else) gives added resonance to the weary, disaffected tales that make up Punch the Big Guy. Stewart has found a perfect sound to describe the landscape left by the Reagan Revolution: the sound of an American heart breaking. Now on the yuppie-oriented Cypress label, Stewart has an avowed purpose, and that is to reach a generation that's nearing middle age. But what might seem like a mere marketing ploy – "Let's get the baby boomers" – is redeemed by the fact that Punch the Big Guy feels timelier and more substantial than anything Stewart has done in years: it's a chronicle of disillusion from a man who hasn't lost his enormous faith in people and who earnestly but eloquently compresses more than four decades of dreams and regrets into songs like "Midnight of the World" and "Children of the New Frontier."

These are gentle, folk-derived pop songs, but the best of them have a genuine emotional edge – and none are any edgier or more telling than "Runaway Train," a devastating sketch of a deteriorating relationship. (The song has also been recorded by Rosanne Cash.) This American voice is still speaking clearly and forcefully. (RS 528)

STEVE POND