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Dave Alvin - Do look back

"Ashgrove", the title song from Dave Alvin's new solo album, is a salute to the Hollywood nightclub where Alvin, as a teenager, first saw Big Joe Turner, T-Bone Walker, Lightnin' Hopkins and Reverend Gary Davis. But this is not your typical tribute tune, full of

Avett Brothers - Raggedy Righteousness

"Screaming my lungs out with nothing to say." So goes the key line of "Please Pardon Yourself", a song of almost palpable yearning and hope from the Avett Brothers' new album Mignonette. I'll give them the first part of that lyric: The trio&

The Improbable Rise Of Redneck Rock

Back in 1998, Lyle Lovett recorded Step Inside This House, covering songs by Willis Alan Ramsey, Steven Fromholz, Michael Martin Murphey and other members of the Texas singer-songwriter fraternity. The original 1974 edition of The Improbable Rise Of Redneck Rock is essentially the book version of that album. In fact,

Mickey Newbury - Blue To This Day

Completed after his death in 2002, Blue To This Day is nonetheless of a piece with the rest of Mickey Newbury's splendid catalog. It affords one final chance to enjoy the studio presence of this quintessential American singer-songwriter, but it also provides his perfectly attuned musical confederates with

House Of Freaks - Monkey On A Chain Gang / Tantilla

With its two-man membership, the Virginia-to-L.A.-and-back-again duo House Of Freaks might have been better named Foyer Of Freaks. That said, the pair -- guitarist-vocalist Bryan Harvey and percussionist supreme Johnny Hott -- were able to generate a genuine musical ruckus, with Hott's personality-filled pounding a perfect

Whiskey Drinkin' Music - Live In Lubbock 1980

As the cover blurb from critic Ed Ward attests, this five-piece band "was arguably the last great progressive country band Austin produced." Whiskey Drinkin' Music was fronted by Jon Emery and Leroy Preston. The latter, who'd left Asleep At The Wheel a year before co-launching

Flatlanders - Live 1972

This is probably the least likely record to come out this year -- so far, at least. Its full title might actually be The Flatlanders Live At The One Knite, Austin, TX, June 8th, 1972, depending on how you read the CD cover. The longer title starts to tell the