Album Review: 'El Corazon'

Eleven years after his prescient debut, this prickly alt-country survivor’s insights into institutional callousness (”Christmas in Washington”), romantic longing (”Somewhere Out There”), and personal iconoclasm (”Here I Am”) resonate with hard-won wisdom. Elsewhere, ”You Know the Rest” is a summary of human history that could be Earle’s ”Highway 61 Revisited,” and ”Ft. Worth Blues” pays moving tribute to pal Townes Van Zandt. A-