CD reviews: John Legend, Susan Tedeschi

John Legend, "Evolver" (Columbia)

Just about everything's a come-on for Legend on his sleekly calculated third album. He tries to persuade his best friend to "Cross the Line." He looks at the world's problems as more reasons to get together "Quickly" with his duet partner, Brandy. He starts "This Time," about running into an ex-lover, as a lonely solo piano ballad; halfway through, as strings build up, he asks, "Can I come see you tonight?" As a singer, Legend is approachable, using the touch of grain in his voice in ways he learned from Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and Bob Marley (whose reggae he imitates in "No Other Love"). Most of his tracks are far more organic than those of Ne-Yo, his electronics-loving rival. Even when Legend uses programmed beats, he usually tops them with hand-played instruments such as piano. Legend avoided hip-hop collaborators on his previous album, "Once Again." This time he enlists Andre 3000 from OutKast to add club ambience to the electronic drums and synthesizer chords of "Green Light." Frequent collaborator Kanye West joins in "It's Over," an uncharacteristically snide song written by Pharrell Williams. At the end of the album, Legend lifts his sights from romance for an earnest change-the-world song: "If You're Out There." It's his only overreach. (Legend performs Nov. 19 at Northrop Auditorium.)

JON PARELES, NEW YORK TIMES

Susan Tedeschi, "Back to the River" (Verve)

Tedeschi and her husband, Derek Trucks, front a band called Soul Stew Revival, but they also release exceptional solo albums, and this one of Tedeschi's finds Trucks guesting on five of 11 tracks. She's often -- justifiably -- compared to Bonnie Raitt, but Tedeschi takes the raspiness in her voice and the ferocity of her playing up a notch on this disc. Several of the songs have tasty, understated horn arrangements, and when Tedeschi gets rockin', as when she tears the Hendrixian roof off the Tony Joe White co-written title track, the effect is devastating. Tedeschi wrote or co-wrote nearly everything, teaming with the likes of Doyle Bramhall II, White, Trucks, John Leventhal, Gary Louris and Sonya Kitchell. This is one of the year's standouts. (Tedeschi performs Nov. 21 at the Pantages Theatre.)