Raul Midón: State of Mind

There was no free food or drink the last time I saw thirtysomething New York-based singer-guitarist Raul Midón, but I'm fairly sure the suits at Manhattan Records would love to introduce Midón on a similarly personal level: The dude's blind, he's half-Argentine, and he has worked with a wide range of collaborators including Little Louie Vega, half of the house duo Masters at Work, and big-league old-school producer Arif Mardin. This is a much more vivid backstory than those of many of the Chardonnay-set crooners with whom Midón rubs demographic elbows, possibly excepting the surprisingly quiet fact that Norah Jones is Ravi Shankar's daughter.

Yet what's sort of great about State of Mind, Midón's major-label debut, is that it sounds as relaxed and low-key as David sounded at that Chicago gig, where the only weapon he had at his disposal was his voice and his songs. Midón is a tremendous guitar player, attacking the instrument with a percussive, syncopated fury that improbably makes perfect sense beneath his full, smoky tenor, whose Stevie-Donny-Marvin sinew he augments with seemingly improvisational flights à la his folk-soul predecessor Terry Callier. Lyrically, he takes cues from the wrong Wonder records: Turns out "everybody is free to make a difference," which is wonderful news. But Midón plays around his biographical baggage with style and aplomb here; he deserves every stool he sits on.