One Left Shoe by Steve Poltz

One Left Shoe, released in 1998 on Mercury, was Steve Poltz's first album under his own name, a detour from the Rugburns, the band he fully expected to go back to. He called it a "sensitive" folk excursion, and that's about right: this is the Canadian-American songwriter who'd worked with Jewel on "You Were Meant for Me", setting the band aside for a quieter, acoustic-leaning record cut at Ocean Way Recording.

"Silver Lining" was the first single. Poltz took the album on the road with Richard X. Heyman and Lisa Loeb, among others, and joined John Doe, Pete Droge and Glen Phillips on a tour that Rufus Wainwright christened the "Frasier Fair". It's a warm, low-key record from a guy who never needed a band behind him to get a room singing along.

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