Sam Phillips kicked off her fall tour this past weekend with two nights at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music and, as the area Sun-Times paper, Southtown Star, reports from Saturday's opening show, she delivered "a masterful performance that was enchanting from beginning to end."

Correspondent Robert Loerzel writes that throughout the show, which featured songs from Sam's latest Nonesuch release, Don't Do Anything, as well as her previous albums, the singer-songwriter "transformed fragile pieces of acoustic folk rock into pounding cabaret waltzes with clanking percussion and chamber music floating along to the lovely violin melodies."

Loerzel credits Sam with having "a real gift for taking familiar phrases and turning them into lyrics that sound almost like logical conundrums." Even so, he writes, "Phillips isn't just being clever; her songs also are grounded in very tangible emotions."

On stage, Sam's "confident and mischievous personality shone through," Loerzel says, in what he concludes was a "superb show."

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"It takes a songwriter such as Sam Phillips to depart from the routine expectations set by the last 50-plus years of pop music," writes Mark Guarino in the Chicago Tribune, finding that "she detoured into German cabaret, French chansons and a waltz, as well as lightly tracing elements of American gospel and blues."

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The tour's next stop is in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Sam and the band play The Ark Tuesday night. For more tour information, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.