Neko Case

A teenage punk-rocker turned alt-country chanteuse, Neko Case was born in Alexandria, VA, and raised mainly in Tacoma, WA. She spent the mid-'90s attending art college in Vancouver, B.C., where she met Carolyn Mark, with whom Case would form the duo the Corn Sisters, whose The Other Women is a loose album consisting mostly of covers, and the future members of power poppers New Pornographers. On her own, though, Case is the most arresting female alt-country singer since the Mekons' Sally Timms. The Virginian, her debut, is heavy on covers, mostly country (Ernest Tubb, Loretta Lynn) but with a nod toward rock-hipster tastes with its version of Scott Walker's "Duchess." Furnace Room Lullaby is even more assured, and features the great "Thrice All American," a tribute to Tacoma ("I wanna tell you about my hometown/It's a dusty old jewel in the south Puget Sound") that's become a theme song of sorts for Case. Blacklisted turned down the twang and cranked up the noir, bringing to mind a more down-home k.d. lang or an updated, David Lynch-ian Patsy Cline, particularly on the two cover tunes, Ketty Lester's "Look for Me (I'll Be Around)," and Aretha Franklin's "Running Out of Fools." Just as impressive are Case's own songs, particularly the haunting "Deep Red Bells," written about the Puget Sound's infamous Green River Killer. (MICHAELANGELO MATOS)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide