For the confessional songwriter worried he's said too much, there's always the covers album. Philadelphia's Witmer, a 26-year-old wunderkind of the confessional form with influences obvious (Jackson Browne) and unlikely (Graham Nash), turns the brief Recovered into one of the year's most compelling diary entries. His version of Browne's "These Days" is the best take on the song since Gregg Allman's thirty years ago, and a cover of Big Star's "Nightime" makes a convincing case for the song as a folk standard. Witmer's sweet, narcotized tenor recalls Browne's voice but isn't weighed down by Browne's smugness. And his own songs are good, too. Where else could this be but at a coffee house?
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