Most tribute albums pay their respects to artists that were identified with a particular sound, which makes all of the new versions quite disappointing. Till the Night Is Gone: A Tribute to Doc Pomus avoids that problem, since the selected artists are paying tribute to a songwriter, not a performer. Doc Pomus wrote some of the greatest songs of the rock & roll era, including "Save the Last Dance for Me" and "This Magic Moment"; although definitive versions of these songs have been recorded, they are written well enough to be open to reinterpretation. On Till the Night Is Gone, a number of first-rate artists, including Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Los Lobos, and Shawn Colvin, rework Pomus' songs into their own distinct styles. Some of the songs fall flat -- Colvin's stark take on "Viva Las Vegas" is too stiff -- but all of the tracks show some degree of imagination, which makes Till the Night Is Gone one of the best tribute albums of 1995.