Drive All Night

Built around a star-studded (production from Joe Henry, guest vocals from Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, and saxophone from the late, great Clarence Clemons' nephew Jake Clemons) cover of Bruce Springsteen's epic 1980 ballad "Drive All Night" (from The River), this four-song EP from Irish singer/songwriter and actor Glen Hansard (the Frames, the Swell Season) was released to raise money for Little Kids Rock, a nonprofit charity that aims to restore music education in public schools. Hansard and company play it safe on the title cut, offering up an emotionally charged yet largely superfluous (outside of the whole raising-money-for-a-good-cause thing) rendition of Springsteen's ardent paean to working-class heartache, while the three original cuts, the evocative "Pennies in the Fountain," the soulful "Renata," and the empowering, completely a cappella "Step Out of the Shadows" should please fans of the Once star's 2012 solo debut, Rhythm and Repose. ~ James Christopher Monger