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They may be a string band, but Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson put a thoroughly modern spin to their rootsy sound. Actor-director Denzel Washington was so drawn to their music that he included it his 2007 film The Great Debaters. Whether delivering a banjo-driven r&b hit (“Hit ’Em Up Style”), a lightning-fast fiddle tune (“Sandy Boys”), an acapella Celtic ballad (“Reynadine”) or a Tom Waits tune (“Trampled Rose”), these Drops have really got it going on. Old-timey with a twist.  

Los Angeles singer Tom Waits has always viewed his favorite denizens of the night with a charming romanticism. But with Rain Dogs Waits’s derelict characters have taken on gritty, three-dimensional life. On "Cemetery Polka" a sad accordion and rude trombone flesh out his vivid portrait of a wildly eccentric family. And the tinkling, aimless piano in "Tango Till They’re Sore" is well suited to the rambling imagination of the song’s narrator. But Waits is most coherent when he sticks to shattered dreams and tin-can sounds of alleyways. On several songs he uses makeshift percussion instruments to create a kind of hobo’s orchestra. His gift for idioms has always been impressive, but now, with a ...