Last year's hands-down winner in the specialist category of best debut album by a deadlocked Russo-Jewish Bahamian-American, Lenny Kravitz has since gone global, being taken up as multi-instrumentalist writer and producer by Madonna and, possibly, Michael Jackson. However, Mama Said confirms that, so far, he's not letting luminary demands leech away his vital juices.

Mind, his objections to being seen as a retro man still fail to convince. The opening moments here feature acoustic guitar, a Fool On The Hill facsimile flute and Lenny Kravitz intoning in dreamy falsetto, Let's wander slowly through the fields/I touch the leaves that touch the sky (even a raucous guitar break by Slash, of Guns N' Roses, fails to crack the dippy-trippy mood). Of course, he's not so much influenced as tie-dyed to the bone by the late '60s. But there's no shame in it because, like World Party, he re-invents, he is truly inspired by the old heroes from the days when he was still in Pampers.

That applies even in his most soundalike mode. His love of John Lennon's simple way with piano, bass and drums (Imagine, for instance) declares itself on Stand By My Woman and, not surprisingly, on All I Ever Wanted which he co-wrote with John Lennon and Yoko Ono's son Sean Lennon. His awe of Jimi Hendrix boils through Stop Draggin' Round. His fondness for Motown Records's sweet soul smiles out of every Smokey Robinson moment on It Ain't Over Till It's Over. It's not a matter of reverent copying, there's fresh life and excitement in every one - plus the sheer sparkle and shake-up as he switches the jump-leads from one source to another.

The distinctive, somewhat oddball, character behind all this defines himself a little more through his less directly derivative arrangements. The twin cylinders of the Lenny Kravitz motor appear to be sex and morality. He's passionate on both fronts, singing his basic I want to be your man message with intensity which matches the darkness of Hammond organ and strings on More Than Anything In This World, and then delivering an angry sermon to a girl who's dabbling with drugs and other sins in When The Morning Turns To Night. But, style strumpet that he undoubtedly is, perhaps the real Lenny Kravitz is the sanguine and rather coarse cynic who enquires of governments What The Fuck Are We Saying? and remarks of more personal strife, in What Goes Around Comes Around (a bossa nova no less), My cup overrunneth with fullness and grace/Yet people push bullshit in my face.

He may touch the leaves that touch the sky, but he's not soft, he's sussed right down to the socks he never wears and, as advertised (by himself), full of positivity. Mama Said is a 14-track holiday - and even at giveaway recession prices still cheaper than a week in Majorca.--Phil Sutcliffe -- © Emap Consumer Magazines Limited. For personal use only.