John Cale will probably always be best known as a member of the Velvet Underground, but Fragments of a Rainy Season, basically a live retrospective of the first two decades of his solo career, shows that Cale"s subsequent years have yielded more interesting and varied work than his relatively brief stint in the "60s with that legendary New York group. Recorded in Brussels in 1992, this hour-long concert finds Cale performing by himself, on piano and acoustic guitar. Though classically trained, he"s not a great pianist; nor is his guitar playing dazzling, and he"s no one"s idea of a technically great vocalist. Still, Cale is a convincing, passionate performer, and his songs--theatrical, narrative in nature, not conventionally "pretty" (indeed, they"re sometimes quite harrowing) but usually compelling--suggest what Kurt Weill might done had the late German composer brought his avant-garde sensibilities to the rock era. Cale draws his inspiration from an astonishing variety of sources, from film director Sam Peckinpah ("Cable Hogue") to poet (and fellow Welshman) Dylan Thomas (three songs are taken from the "Falkland Suite" from Cale"s Words for the Dying album, all with words by Thomas); Cale also throws in plenty of his own bons mots, like "life and death are just things you do when you"re bored" (from "Fear Is a Man"s Best Friend"). It"s ironic, perhaps, that two of his best known tunes were written by others (Elvis Presley"s "Heartbreak Hotel" and Leonard Cohen"s "Hallelujah," which appeared in the first Shrek movie). But whatever John Cale is singing, this is an artist worthy of serious attention. --Sam Graham