I have a new album from Alice Stuart.

If you're reading this in Pittsburgh, you might be saying, "Who?"

If you'e reading in Portland, Ore., (and we hope you are), you'll be saying, "Yeah!"

She's been chosen to compete in the 2008 International Blues Challenge, representing the Portland Cascade Blues Association.

So far, nothing too unusual. Except that Alice is 65, and cut her first album on vinyl (you remember that, don't you?) in 1964 for the folk-blues label Arhoolie.

And it's not that I think the more mature among us can't cut the blues. Pinetop Perkins is 94. But when the guitar slingers are coming out so young these days that you expect to find their mothers leading them onstage, it's actually kind of refreshing to think that age, like size, may not really matter much after all. Or maybe it's just that aging makes both those thoughts more attractive. Go figure.

Dylan, who's about that age himself now, said something like, "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now." You go, Bob.

So Alice Stuart, who started out about the time that Dylan did, and sang plaintiff folk songs and sturdy blues, and then kind of disappeared in the '70s until recording again in 2002, is looking at the blues from both sides now.

Lately, she's won a bunch of awards in and around the Seattle area, and her 2002 album, "Can't Find No Heaven," earned Grammy and Handy nominations.

Now Stuart and her band, The Formerlys (that's a cool name), have an album called "Freedom," which has been called to my attention by Hellbender Marketing. How can I ignore that?

It's an interesting CD -- almost has the feel of an acoustic album set to electric guitar. It's sweet, liquid-sounding blues with a kind of high-lonesome feel to the songwriting -- mostly Stuart's. Can you express tough, independent feelings with a gentle touch? The answer here is yes.

I was curious, after listening to these tracks, about the Early Alice. Just a few Internet clicks away, I found the album cover from that first album, "All The Good Times," (shown above) and a few tracks to listen to.

So let's compare.

Here's a sample from "Good Times," titled "Follow Me Honey, I'll Turn Your Money Green."
Here's a sample of the title track from the new "Freedom," titled "Freedom."

BlueNotes was on a roll, here, wondering what the New Alice would sound like playing the kind of acoustic stuff played by Early Alice. As with many questions these days, the answer was quickly found on YouTube.

Here's a video of Alice and Brad Davis working over the Jimmy Reed chestnut, "Big Boss Man." Nicely done.

I appear to have digressed a lot here in trying to write something about Stuart's new album, but who she is now seems to have a lot to do with who she was then. BlueNotes, always decisive in such matters, has decided he likes them both.