So, you’re one of those geniuses who blows everyone’s mind every few years and then goes out of his way to bury all that greatness under personal bitterness, ego, alienation and “fuck ’em all” arrogance. If that’s the case and it’s 1976, you’re probably Lou Reed. He all but created underground art rock in the 1960s with the Velvet Underground, pissed off everyone in his band and went solo in the early 1970s, fortified glam and foretold a future of punk with Transformer, pissed off everyone (except maybe his #1 cheerleader, David Bowie), made a beautiful but failed epic with Berlin, pissed off everyone with a sheen-ridden live album, issue the amiable, pop-tinged Sally Can’t Dance—and then really, really pissed off everyone (and I mean almost everyone) with the kissoff of looping feedback electro cacophony on Metal Machine Music. So it’s time between pissing off everyone, then, right? Time for Coney Island Baby, one of Reed’s unmistakable, if sometimes overlooked, meisterwerks. Following the dismal reviews of the thoroughly misunderstood and maligned Metal Machine Music, many believed it was the end for one the era’s boldest innovators, including Reed himself. One person who hadn’t given up was the head of his label, Ken Glancy at RCA Records. Glancy believed in Reed’s artistry and felt he wasn’t cooked yet. Reed had no guitars—they had been usurped by unpaid crew members—but he had songs and decamped to Electric Lady Studios. The result as a record bathed in dark confessional tales that echoed his VU legacy and touched on the downtrodden dramatics of Berlin. “Charlie’s Girl” is a pluperfect sample of Reed’s patented, ambling street poetry. The title track finds stripped-down, laidback soul with ruminations on “playing football for the coach” and ultimately giving in to “the glory of love.” This latest reissue includes six alternate cuts and a foreword by Reed himself. Reed peeks from behind a bowler hat looking like a damaged Joel Grey from Cabaret on the album’s Mick Rock cover photo. Fittingly, on Coney Island Baby Reed is like an analog to Grey’s character: a master of ceremonies left to give a song and dance in front of self-loathing love triangles and a world crumbling around him.

Out of Chicago comes a trio doing something pretty great. Okay, they ain’t rewriting the book or anything, but there is glory in going back to the basics, taking the good stuff, throwing it all together and making something new out of it. Catfish Haven create an entirely unique and refreshing blessing of direct rock and roll with old-time wear on its elbows and flavored like a Southern soul stew. Somehow this three-piece make themselves sound like the entire Stax house band. Okay , they’ve got some help from a horn section and backup singers in parts, but still, Tell Me is a fitting testament to bygone era. “Let It Go (Got to Grow)” is a solid and funky display of what frenetic guitar and handclaps can do. “Tell Me” is honest, corner boy doo-wop complete with singer/guitarist Hunter testifying, “I wanna be a good man/But I ain’t so bad.” Were it not for the ramshackle (at least to mainstream ears) production of “Crazy for Leaving,” it would be instantly fit for radio as it exudes ace songcraft and bristles with carefree joy and pop bliss. The record is as downhome and natural as anything you’ll hear this year. “Grey Skies” offers raw, countrified electric blues. Tell Me signals that Catfish Haven is likely to build a loyal army behind them of those who savor their collection of Otis Redding,Van Morrison, William Bell, Springsteen, Creedence and Marah.