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MORE BRITNEY: We saw her undies in the tragically unimaginative Crossroads. We’ve seen her attempt pop styles from the ’50s through the ’80s in a serial-nostalgia ad campaign by her corporate patron, Pepsi. What we’re getting at is that we’re not sure there’s a whole lot left of Britney Spears we haven’t seen, but round two of the epic tour behind her Britney album is headed our way. Last time around, ticket demand was so lackluster that we had trouble giving away our extra seat, and scalpers were pulling their hair out. Be that as it may, Britney returns to the FleetCenter on June 29; tickets go on sale this Saturday, March 16, at 10 a.m. Call (617) 931-2000.

HIGHER EDUCATION: The droll SNL commentator-turned-publishing-phenomenon Al Franken — author of, among other things, Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot — lets loose his latest literary endeavor, Oh, the Things I Know: A Guide to Success, or, Failing That, Happiness (EP Dutton), at the beginning of May. "A beacon to guide graduate students across the uncertain seas of post-academic life," it’s appearance will be followed by a book tour that brings Franken to the Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard Street in Brookline, on May 4 at noon. Tickets are $2, and available through Brookline Booksmith; call (617) 566-6660.

NEXT WEEKEND:

Rosalie Sorrels

The story of Rosalie Sorrels, the Idaho songcatcher, folksinger, storyteller, and "travelin’ lady," has become its own folk tale — a 20th-century folk tale at that. In the mid ’60s, an Idaho-born teenager caught up in a bad marriage divorces her husband, scoops up their five children, hops in the car, and sets out without much hope of making a living. They live a nomadic existence in coffeehouses and truck stops; she plays protest songs and lullabies and all manner of Americana in a voice that embraces both a salt-of-the-earth twang and an artful depth of emotion gleaned from jazz singers. The folk balladeer Gamble Rodgers calls her "the hillbilly Edith Piaf," and more than one reviewer compares her to Billie Holiday. One night, she can’t remember exactly where, she’s playing with her old friend Dave Van Ronk. "And Dave said, ‘I want to introduce her tonight, nobody ever does it right,’ " Sorrels recalls over the phone from her Idaho home. "So he got up and said, ‘I’ve been known as a friend of the downtrodden, and I want you to know this is the most downtrodden broad I ever met!’ "

It’s been 40 years, and lots of water has flowed under the bridge: 22 albums, collaborations with the Beats and Utah Phillips, Newport ’66, Woodstock ’69, Isle of Wight ’70. And pain: her eldest son committed suicide a couple of decades ago, and Rosalie has survived a brain aneurysm and, more recently, a bout with breast cancer. None of these setbacks ever stopped her from performing. In the end, what’s forced her to accept "retirement" — note the qualifying quotation marks — is her eyesight. "I’m not going to stop singing," says the 68-year-old, "but I’m not driving anymore, I’ve had to cut that down quite a bit. I don’t see very well at night: you wouldn’t want me out there! I drove 90,000 miles one year — truck drivers don’t drive that much. I can’t take that kind of a pace. Oh, but I loved it, gypsying around and seeing the country, it was wonderful. I fly a lot more now."

To celebrate Sorrels’s semi-retirement, her friends are throwing her a celebration next Saturday night at Sanders Theatre, with the reclusive guitarist David Bromberg, bitchin’ babe Christine Lavin, Jean Ritchie, Peggy Seeger, Loudon Wainwright III, and Patrick Sky. Van Ronk had agreed to come too, but he died on February 10. "It broke my heart," says Sorrels. "We’d known each other since 1967, and he’s always been such a good friend. All of my children adored him, he always had this Dutch-uncle way he would talk to them." The concert is dedicated to his memory.

And what will Sorrels do with herself now? "I actually live in a beautiful place," she says of her Idaho cabin, on land that’s been in her family since before she was born. "I want to spend more time here." She’s also hoping to travel: Spain and Australia are on her list of things to do. "I want to see 50 kangaroos somewhere," she laughs.

And she has some recording projects in mind, though she’s skeptical about finding a label to back them. "I have three or four albums I’d really like to do, none of them would sell. I did an album some time ago that was mostly spoken-word. It was mostly my mother’s writing: she was enormously literate, and she wrote about living alone in a cabin. She wrote very articulately about solitude. I love the writing, and I recorded it with some songs that she likes. I did it to please her more than anything else — and it did, so I regard it as a real success! But you can see where it wouldn’t be a real hot seller.

"I’d also like to do something like that relative to my father, who I thought was a very interesting person. I’d like to do something about solitude. Which I think is a massively neglected subject, to everyone’s detriment."

"Rosalie Sorrels and Her Friends: A Celebration of Forty Years" takes place next Saturday, March 23, at 8 p.m. at Sanders Theatre, 45 Quincy Street in Harvard Square. Tickets are $21 to $30; call (617) 496-2222.

BY CARLY CARIOLI

Issue Date: March 14 - 21, 2002
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