Tommy Alverson has nurtured honky-tonk talent in Texas for decades, helping young artists find their voices and bringing vintage performers back to the stage for new audiences. This new disc finds Alverson sharing Fender/fiddle/steel drenched stone cold country with Leon Rausch, Johnny Bush, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Rusty Weir, Mike Crow and others. But this ain't name-checking, it's genuine affection, for the artists and the material.
"Maybe In Mexico", a co-write with Jerry Max Lane, is a superb example of "Third Coast" honky-tonk. Bush is in top vocal form on "Anytime, Anywhere". Longtime protege Ed Burleson chimes in on Roger Miller's "Invitation To The Blues". The most poignant of the bunch is the touching litany ballad "My Hometown".
Alverson rightly re-records one of his best compositions, "I Can't Help Myself Darlin'", with Gary P. Nunn, who duets and lends a credible Charlie Rich-style piano part. Other highlights include "My Way Or The Highway", a posthumous tribute to Waylon Jennings; Willie Nelson's "I'm A Memory", a duet with Brian Burns; Weir's "Cheryl Doreen", about a rodeo queen; and "Bordertown Girl", from Hubbard's Cowboy Twinkie era.
True to form, Alverson introduces newcomers Heather Morgan, who duets like Dolly to Alverson's Porter on "Just Someone I Used to Know"; and Davin James, whose drawlin' baritone and stinging guitar add to the hilarity of "It Could Be Much Worse". On the Bob Wills swing classic "Deep Water", he's accompanied by Wills vocalist Rauch, who adds his trademark "a-ha" for a neck-hair-tingling thrill.
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