Zephaniah OHora

★★★★ Listening To The Music LAST ROUNDUP. CD/DL/LP Second album from Brooklynbased urban cowboy. YOU’D BE hard-pushed to find an album with a better sound than this. Lush, warm, sepia-tinged, but sparkling – it’s just so listenable. As is Zephaniah OHora’s deep, rich voice, as equally inviting on country crooners like We Planned To Have It All, Listening To The Music and the excellent It’s Not So Easy Today, as on songs evoking Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard, Bakersfield and honky tonks (or, on jaunty Time Won’t Take Its Time, Jimmie Rodgers). Though the 12 songs are originals, there’s an instant familiarity, many having their roots in ’50s/’60s countrypolitan, though at times with more contemporary lyrics (All American Singer). The 14 musicians – including Jon Graboff on pedal steel and John Lee Shannon and Neal Casal on guitars – do a very fine job. The album is dedicated to Casal, who produced it, and died shortly after its completion.