Laurence Juber

We all have our comfort foods. Musically speaking, too. In the ear-candy department, mine—being a semi-competent player of some half-assed note—comes in the form of acoustic guitar CDs. Thus, Laurence Juber’s newest disc is like a gift-wrapped box of chocolates. Juber, who played with a latter-day edition of Wings and with Al Stewart, is a fingerstyle player whose facility on his instrument brings to mind that old saw about “he could sing the phone book.” On these 13 songs, all but two of them originals (Paul McCartney’s “My Love” and Smokey Robinson’s “My Girl”), Juber moves around from Beatle-like complex pop to jazz and blues, some cuts solo and some backed by stand-up bass and light percussion. When his flashy rolls and percussive technique don’t get in the way, which is most of the time, his fingers sing. And that, in a nut, is what separates guys like Juber from those who can merely play.