People are ready for a fresh-faced heir apparent to Paul Simon, and from the looks of things, Brett Dennen is the guy. His warm, socially conscious folk continues to grow in appeal. Maybe it's the fact that he has more to say about the world than Jack Johnson, and that he does it with a fractured, sensitive croon and a buoyant acoustic sound that (like Simon's Graceland) is often laced with world-music grooves.
Virginia quintet Parachute has been on the rise since it landed the song "She's Love" in a Nivea commercial. Suddenly, thousands of women with smooth legs wanted more of those smooth pop-rock sounds. In the resulting buzz storm on iTunes and the like, the song eventually also landed on the current pop music holy grail -- the soundtrack to an episode of One Tree Hill. With an upcoming tour slot opening for O.A.R. (which arrives at the Pompano Beach Amphitheatre on August 29), it's only a matter o
