Sam Cooke

At its darkest, the Wallflowers song "Hand Me Down" sounds like the mother of all bad reviews. Over a rhythm guitar that's equal parts Tom Petty and Lou Reed, singer Jakob Dylan drily chides, "You won't ever amount to much / You won't be anyone." It gets worse from there, as the nameless accusers continue to berate our hero. But what really hurts isn't the venom in these lines, but the condescension. "It's not your fault that you embarrass us all," goes one apologetic jibe. Hearing it, you can't help but wince.

There were no record shops in the neighborhood, and the nearest one was two bus rides away. The tiny, hopelessly conventional Welsh town where Aimee Anne Duffy grew up offered next to nothing in the way of soul education. But years later, the singer, who goes by just her last name, would find the earthy stylist within. A new world opened up when, at about age 19 or 20, she discovered the sounds of Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke and other legends from soul's golden era. Such vintage sounds largely inspired Rockferry, her critically lauded, gold-selling debut that was released in March.

I was 7 years old when I decided against a life of crime.My parents threw some cushions on the floor in the back seat of our 1957 fire-engine-red Oldsmobile, creating an area for me and my sister to play while traveling cross-country. A fair amount of my current infatuation with all that can be seen and known about life in America developed during summer excursions from motel to motel, diner to diner, state to state.It was somewhere in South Carolina or maybe Georgia -- the roadsides bordered by endless stretches of red clay baking in the hot sun -- where I saw one of the images that has stayed in my head for 35 years.

The Milwaukee Brewers finally have found the right formula for winning. All they needed to do was avoid using their best players. The Brewers traded away star slugger Richie Sexson in 2004 and jettisoned closer Danny Kolb and Scott Podsednik before this season. Last week, they placed starter Ben Sheets, their only legitimate All-Star, on the disabled list. And, if it weren't for the ridiculously hot St. Louis Cardinals, the second-place Brewers would be making some early noise in the National League Central.

THE PROMISED LANDVarious Artists (Columbia 66969)As a social document, the Discovery Channel series "The Promised Land" offers a fascinating look at why and how blacks moved from the rural South to the urban North. As an album, "The Promised Land" tells an equally complex, somewhat more diffuse tale. In addition to an impressive array of historical recordings documenting the shifting tides of American popular music -- everything from Robert Johnson's "Sweet Home Chicago" to Sly and the Family Stone's "Stand" to Public Enemy's "Bring the Noise" -- this double album also includes new recordings that demonstrate how that heritage continues to make its impact felt.

A colleague recently passed along the spring issue of the journal DoubleTake, and I'm delighted that he did. Published by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, it's a thick arts quarterly -- and a genuine find.It can't be very old (this is Volume 2, No. 2), but it boasts an impressive roster of talent: There's poetry by Tess Gallagher, Donald Hall, Philip Levine and Seamus Heaney; it has fiction by Joyce Carol Oates; and one of the editors is Harvard educator and author Robert Coles.

VAGABOND HEARTRod Stewart (Warner Bros. 26300)Strictly speaking, a pop singer can't make a comeback record without first going away. Yet somehow, Rod Stewart, who hasn't taken a break from singing since before his latest wife was born, has managed to make a comeback album, anyway. "Vagabond Heart" is more than a return to form for the aging rocker -- it's almost like a trip back in time. "Rhythm of My Heart," for instance, is as soul-baringly sentimental as any ballad from "Every Picture Tells a Story," while "Moment of Glory" rocks like a forgotten Faces single.

The inaugural balls are so expensive. The swearing-in ceremony requires impossible-to-get tickets. The MARC train to Washington is sold out. Never mind that it's really cold outside. But there is hope to mark the inauguration without the headache. Call it Obama Without Drama. Members of the arts, media and entertainment communities have said "Yes We Can" to the inauguration, Baltimore-style. They've come up with ways to partake in the historic inauguration of the nation's 44th president without much cash, connections or foul-weather gear.

The cruel machinations of a decadent aristocracy months before the bloody French Revolution took place is the focus of Christopher Hampton's stage play, "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," which is having its Baltimore premiere at the Fell's Point Corner Theatre.A worthwhile production it is directed with intensity and high style by Barry Feinstein. This intriguing period piece complete with costumes of the time is based on the 200-year-old French classic novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. (Hampton's adaptation became a very successful motion picture featuring Glenn Close and John Malkovich)

NEW YORK - With the demise of Stanley Kubrick, Michael Mann has taken over as the reigning perfectionist of American movies. So talented is Mann that his invariably gritty and increasingly adult pictures have become events to rival sci-fi blockbusters. This happens even when his movies showcase little-known stars in commercially risky ventures. Think of Daniel Day-Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans (1992), a historically savvy revival of frontier romance, and pre-Gladiator Russell Crowe in 1999's The Insider , a muckraker about big tobacco and broadcasting that's also a paradigm of compromised corporate lives.