The new Gillian Welch & David Rawlings LP > a 1969 David Bowie film > T Bone Burnett > a Prince guitar solo in Chicago

Welch & Rawlings widen their sound on "Woodland." T Bone Burnett, who first helped them take flight, downscales. A week's worth of music at the DNC.

PHOTO: ALYSSE GAFKJEN

When he was in his early 20s, David Bowie made Love You Till Tuesday, a short promo film involving a performer who achieves fame by donning a mask, only to discover he can’t remove it. It includes an early version of “Space Oddity,” and introduced the character of Major Tom.

It was an interesting parable for Bowie, who cycled through many masks during his career, shedding each quickly, and it was one I thought about a lot when writing my biography of Lou Reed, who found his masks tougher to lose.

I thought about masks again while re-visiting the gorgeous music of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, who have a near-magical ability to collapse a listener’s sense of time and history, and connect with the ancient.