To some, Bob Neuwirth will forever be seen as Bob Dylan"s acerbic road manager/comic accomplice, an identity immortalized in D.A. Pennebaker"s classic 1967 documentary Don"t Look Back. In fact, Neuwirth has long been an exceptional singer-songwriter in his own, recording superior (albeit largely ignored) sets for a slew of labels, including Asylum and Gold Castle. This seat- of-his-pants 1996 set finds the weathered troubadour mixing it up on the road with an assortment of peers and apostles. Contemporaries Billy Swan, Sandy Bull, and Patti Smith turn up on songs they co-wrote with Neuwirth, while relative youngsters Victoria Williams, Mark Olsen, and Peter Case make equally obliging contributions. Conceived as "a modern-day field trip," Neuwirth laid down these tracks during stays in Texas, New York, Southern California, and Paris. The result is a varied and vital aural postcard from a man who travels like a trouper. --Steven Stolder