Marti Jones's 1985 debut, 'Unsophisticated Time,' was an out-of-left-field stunner. With Jones's sultry singing, Don Dixon's subtle production and the pair's ultrasmart song selection, the album came off as a hip update of Dusty Springfield's Dusty in Memphis – maybe it would have sold better if they'd called it Marti in Charlotte. But this brilliant, eclectic pop record couldn't find a home...

Somewhere under the Christmas '85 avalanche of superstar releases and greatest-hits packages lies this shy beauty of an album. So before you slap on another side of Biograph, go back and dig it out, because Unsophisticated Time is a solo debut of unexpected warmth and originality that deserves to outlive most of the glitz that buried it.

This is not Marti Jones' first brush with obscurity; the...

'Used Guitars' is one of those rare albums that catch your ear with their modest charm and then take on a deeper significance. It is, first of all, a collection of songs by some exemplary writers, including John Hiatt and Graham Parker. More than this, however, it is a song cycle that follows a woman's emotions through a difficult passage; there's both yearning for something lasting in the way of...