2.5 stars (out of 4)

Bon Iver’s 2008 debut, “For Emma, Forever Ago,” punctuated a new era of male sensitivity, indie-rock division. Like Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold and Iron and Wine’s Sam Beam, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon connected with the type of earnest, low-key songs that James Taylor once would’ve strummed around the campfire to a gaggle of adoring hippies. Since then Vernon has become something of a mystique-laden cult star – the guy who retreated into the wilderness after breaking up with his band and his girlfriend, made an album full of ghosts and heavenly, broken harmonies that sold more than 300,000 copies, and then got a call to jam with Kanye West in Hawaii.

On the follow-up, “Bon Iver, Bon Iver” (Jagjaguwar), Vernon opens up a bit; instead of holing up by himself with a guitar and laptop, he surrounds himself with musicians. The sound is a good deal plusher, the arrangements thickened with pedal steel, saxophone, horns, percussion. But Vernon still sounds like he’s back in that Wisconsin cabin that birthed “Emma.” His falsetto is the album’s central instrument – sometimes starkly alone, sometimes layered into a cosmic choir, occasionally twisted into an otherworldly, Auto-Tuned wobble.

Horns spiral and thundering drums split open the eulogy “Perth.” “Minnesota, WI” flirts with a reggae rhythm, then pits flutes against banjo. These orchestrations give the songs the feel of movies, evoking the locales suggested in the titles and the memories that come with them. But the album’s middle sags with drifting arrangements and it concludes with a dud: the cheesy, reverb-laden ‘80s pop of “Beth/Rest.”

Vernon gets it right on “Calgary,” though: A song that takes the hushed, hymn-like tone of “For Emma, Forever Ago” and builds it into a tower of yearning. Call it soul music for shut-ins.

greg@gregkot.com

United Sounds of America: The six-part series inspired by six American cities and regions concludes with concerts devoted to Detroit (Friday with Marshall Crenshaw) and Austin (Saturday with Alejandro Escovedo), 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Av., $25 to $70; cso.org or 312-294-3000.

My Morning Jacket: The Louisville band’s latest album, “Circuital,” is inconsistent, but its reputation for strong live performances remains intact. This show will be a relatively intimate affair compared to MMJ’s headlining slot at Lollapalooza in August, 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress Pkwy., $37.50 and $47.50; ticketmaster.com.

Screaming Females: You’ll see no better guitarist this month than Marissa Paternoster, who shreds something fierce while leading this aggressively melodic New Jersey trio, 6:30 p.m. Friday with Against Me! at Metro, 3730 N. Clark St., $18; etix.com.

greg@gregkot.com

United Sounds of America: This six-part series opens this weekend with music inspired by American cities and regions, including New York (Friday with hosts Bill Charlap and Suzanne Vega), Route 66 (Saturday with Arlo Guthrie) and New Orleans (Sunday with the Rebirth Brass Band), 8 p.m. Friday-Sunday at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Av., $25 to $70; cso.org or 312-294-3000.

Booker T. Jones: The great soul progenitor is out with a new album, “The Road from Memphis,” that chronicles his musical progression through the decades and affirms that his Hammond B3-organ playing remains unmatched, 7 and 10 p.m. Saturday at Old Town School of Folk Music, 4544 N. Lincoln Av., $38 and $34; oldtownschool.org.

greg@gregkot.com

It’d be audacious coming from just anybody else, but William “Bootsy” Collins named his new album “The Funk Capital of the World” (Mascot) knowing full well he could back up the claim. Everyone from Snoop Dogg and Chuck D to Bobby Womack and his old mentor George Clinton stop in for a cameo, and actor Samuel Jackson nearly steals the show with a terrific rap about his young life as one of the boys in the ‘hood. The foundation for it all is Bootsy’s rubbery, still-futuristic bass playing, and no matter what the style -- jazz, psychedelia, bedroom ballads – the groove is always there.

"It wasn’t about black, white, green grass, bluegrass, it was all just music to me,” says Collins, who will bring a 13-piece band including his fellow Parliament-Funkadelic accomplices Bernie Worrell and Blackbyrd McKnight to the Congress Theatre on Friday. “All music had a certain effect on me and I appreciated all of it. Funk is on the ‘one’ and music is all one, not to be separated. It doesn’t need a name. The key question is, ‘How does it make you feel?’ ”

Growing up in Cincinnati in the ‘50s and ‘60s, Collins learned to play guitar because that was the instrument of his older brother, Phelps “Catfish” Collins. Bootsy’s idol was Lonnie Mack, who specialized in blues-based instrumentals. Not exactly a funk progenitor, Mack was a hero to Collins because he was “a guy who played with his heart and soul. I finally got a chance to meet him 10 years ago and I just wanted him to know that I felt what he was doing. I didn’t need to label it.”

    Raphael Saadiq’s love affair with the soul music of his parents’ generation became explicit in the first moments of his concert Friday at a packed Park West.

    Over a drum beat that sounded like vintage Motown knocking at the door, Saadiq sang, “I told her I had a girl/That meant the world to me/She just looked me up and down/Was her name R&B?”

    It put all those love songs that Saadiq writes in a fresh context: Is he writing about a girl, or is he writing about his muse, the music that stole his heart as a kid and never gave it back?

    Saadiq, 45, has been recording and producing hits in various guises for two decades, as a solo artist, band leader (most notably with hitmakers Tony! Toni! Tone!) and collaborator with artists such as D’Angelo, Mary J. Blige and Erykah Badu. He’s always had a boyish enthusiasm for performing, and a flexible, naturally joyous voice that suggests a young Stevie Wonder. But with his latest album, “Stone Rollin’ ” (Columbia), Saadiq finds a new gear. The album and his current tour demonstrate that there’s a big difference between retro and classic, and the artist consistently finds himself on the right side of that divide.

Raphael Saadiq: The former singer in Tony! Toni! Toné! is a successful producer (D’Angelo, Joss Stone, Mary J. Blige), while his solo recordings attack old-school soul with the verve of a true believer, 8 p.m. Friday at Park West, 322 W. Armitage, $30; etix.com.

Joe Ely: The Texas songwriter is one of the original Flatlanders, the Zen cowboys who laid the groundwork for alternative country, and his career ever since has been defined by  searcher’s eclecticism, embracing everything from Mariachi music to punk, 9 p.m. Saturday at FitzGerald’s, 6615 W. Roosevelt Rd., Berwyn, Ill., $20, ticketweb.com.

greg@gregkot.com

“Whatever happened to the people who gave a damn?” Gil Scott-Heron once asked in song.

The Chicago-born artist was a voice of dissent in a music industry that was turning into a big business during the ‘70s, transforming pop hits and party tunes into profit. It wasn’t a particularly hospitable place for Scott-Heron, who died Friday at 62. But he never set his sights on the charts. Instead, he devoted his life to writing, speaking, agitating and thinking out loud about the world. He gave a damn.

He made poetry of confrontation and art out of everyday life. As the critic Nelson George once wrote, Scott-Heron was a “keyboardist, poet, singer, rapper, and teller of uncomfortable truths.” Those truths could encompass everything from chastising the President of the United States to musing about how difficult it sometimes is for a man to tell his child, “I love you.”

An uncompromising artist working in a machine that thrives on compromise, Scott-Heron was an imperfect fit for the disco and MTV eras, though his “uncomfortable truths” resonated with those who wanted more out of music than  just escapist good times. His music was scattered across a hodgepodge of labels, and several of his best albums weren’t widely available until decades later.

The best of his music occurred in a rush of creativity through the ‘70s as he emerged from his teen years, already a published author and a serious student of blues, jazz, Langston Hughes and LeRoi Jones. He stumbled into the business of making records because a respected elder, veteran jazz producer Bob Thiele, encouraged him. He had a lot to say, producing an album a year for a decade-plus while touring relentlessly with the band he built with his college friend, keyboardist Brian Jackson.

Though Scott-Heron is often typecast as a rap progenitor – a label he steadfastly rejected -- he more accurately suggested a mix of Richard Pryor’s darkly comical oratory, beat poetry and blues-inflected ballad-singing. Musicians more steeped in jazz than funk accompanied him, and the music embodied many of the values of ‘70s jazz fusion, for better or worse. There were elastic time signatures and flowing keyboard melodies, but there were also plenty of meandering flute solos. Even amid the pastel arrangements, Scott-Heron’s rich, mahogany voice commanded attention.

He left behind dozens of recordings. How to get a handle on this multi-faceted artist? Here’s where to start:

Damon and Naomi: Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang, the former rhythm section of Galaxie 500, have maintained a high standard throughout their 25 years as a duo, blending chamber pop, acid-folk and wistful melodies, 9 p.m. Friday at Lincoln Hall, 2424 N. Lincoln Av, $12; lincolnhallchicago.com.

Anna Calvi: A fierce guitarist with a penchant for drama that brings to mind a surrealist movie soundtrack as much as pop music, the British singer is touring on the heels of her excellent, self-titled debut album, 10 p.m. Saturday at Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, $12; schubas.com.

Chicago Blackout Festival: For a preview, see the post HERE, 7 p.m. Friday and 4 p.m. Saturday at Velvet Perineum, 2515 N. Milwaukee, $20 (Friday), $30 (Saturday) and $45 (two-day pass); ticketweb.com.

greg@gregkot.com

“What would Beyonce do?” Adele joked as her concert wound down Tuesday at the Riviera.

As glamorous pop divas go, the 23-year-old north London native with the powerhouse voice and blue-collar pedigree is no Beyonce. But she has pretty much owned the pop charts so far this year.

Even by the standards of the relatively young British neo-soul singers with whom she is most compared – Amy Winehouse, Joss Stone, Duffy – Adele Adkins is modest almost to a fault. She walked on stage with one pop-star affectation – “my first weave,” she laughingly proclaimed – but otherwise looked like she’d be more comfortable hosting an art-gallery opening rather than fronting a six-piece backing band at a concert that sold out weeks in advance.

Adele debuted in 2008 with “19,” a subdued, largely self-written folk-soul collection that showcased a robust voice that didn’t need to shout, warble or unnecessarily drag out notes to connect. It also brought her a “Best New Artist” Grammy Award, and then the pros took over on the follow-up. With top-line producers and songwriters massaging it, “21” was groomed for stardom and it’s been the year’s breakthrough album so far with more than 1.7 million sales.

Adele: The U.K. pop-soul vocalist is shaping up as the breakout star of 2011, with her heavy-hitting second album, “21” dominating the pop charts on both sides of the Atlantic, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Riviera, 4746 N. Racine, $35 (sold out) etix.com.

greg@gregkot.com