The key to this fourth and not-just-another-fine-but-finest CD yet by these Midwest rock Wilburys is its one faithfully rendered cover: “Strangers” by Dave Davies of the Kinks. Just as that song allowed brother Dave to provide a perfect counterpoint to Ray Davies’ songs on Lola Versus the Powerman, Golden Smog…

Back when Deep Ellum was a musical hotbed, Meredith Miller was one of the talented teens who coulda been a contender. With her loamy alto, slightly quirky lyrics and smart-chick style, she might have ended up a more urbane Dar Williams or followed in Lisa Loeb’s footsteps to a mid-level…

They take their name from the “The Black Angel’s Death Song” by the Velvet Underground and ominously sing about war, paranoia, devastation, hell and death–of course, death–over a weighty, dark-hued, funereal rock drone. So one might naturally expect to find the Black Angels hunkered down in a decaying urban warehouse…

The title of A Hundred Highways, Johnny Cash’s final recordings, actually understates the roads and mileage he traveled–literally, spiritually and musically–and their resonance throughout this disc. The larger-than-life Cash voice is ragged and wizened, yet it still brims with what was all along his biggest vocal gift: character that runs…

There were but four Small Faces, and two of them landed in Austin: bassist and multiple sclerosis sufferer Ronnie Lane from the late 1980s to the mid-’90s and then-keyboard player Ian “Mac” McLagan, today the capital city’s most beloved ex-pat musical Brit. MS finally took Lane’s life, but McLagan fondly…

Yet another singer-songwriter from Austin, a city where you can’t even spit without gobbing on a sensitive dude? Yawn, you might say. But let’s give Grant Olney credit for at least being different from the rabble, even if he sings with a bit too obvious faux-Brit accent in order to…

In a fashion not dissimilar to how it brought succor to black Southern field hands, the blues has also been a means for white kids like Guy Forsyth to escape their suburban roots and acquire some soul. And unlike hordes of his fellow Austinites whose music prattles endlessly through the…

Let’s talk about the South: It’s where country music leapt into sweet miscegenation with the blues and had a kickin ‘n’ howlin’ little brat called rock ‘n’ roll. Some 10 years later the Brits reprocessed it and sold it back to the next young Stateside generation. The Black Crowes stand…

Bay Area musical bard Jesse DeNatale delivers one of the most delicious–and rare–surprises for music buffs: the chance to hear a new, distinctive voice and set of songs that nonetheless feel utterly familiar on first listen. Or, in short, a genuine emerging talent. Quick (and highly favorable) references would be…

Husky-voiced thrush Moorer had just about played out the string of her languid left-of-center Nashville country. Her initially great promise had been getting Xeroxed over and over again into fuzziness, but new producer Steve Earle kicks her energy up a few notches as Moorer’s songwriting–previously in collaboration for the most…

Before the tres cool producer legend of note came the ultra-cool, left-field and decidedly cult artist whose eclecticism and artiness–albeit mixed with his gritty Fort Worth roots–likely kept him from becoming, say, Elvis Costello (who Burnett produced and is half of the Coward Brothers for a track here). What made…

Paul Simon and Brian Eno? The very idea reads like a trick false answer on a pop-music trivia quiz. Then again, so did the marriage of Simon and hometown darling Edie Brickell, which by all appearances has turned out to be a successful (and fertile) union. And so is this…

You gotta give Hank III credit for being almost all things to all people. To some, he’s the genetic reincarnation of his grandpa. Or he’s as much an appealing contrarian as his dad, Hank Jr. He’s even the ultimate country punk–a soused and pilled-up Gen XXX nightmare inflicted on NashVegas…

It’s safe to assume that Dallas country singer-songwriter Mark David Manders doesn’t claim Cedar Springs as his local borough. Oh, don’t be fooled by the title of his latest single, “Brokeback Mountain,” posted for play on his label’s Web site, Big Karma Records (bigkarmarecords.com/catalog)–it’s not a movie-loving tribute that’ll be…

Confusion? Naw. The point on this 14-track slammer by the Denton-born, Austin-based Gamblers is as clear as a middle-finger salute with one fist and a roundhouse from the other. With producer Andrew “Mudrock” Murdock tightening and buffing the sound up from the somewhat more anarchic crackle of their last two…

“I don’t think of us as a Southern rock band,” says Patterson Hood, the main axle of the Drive-By Truckers. Huh? Isn’t this the band that made a two-CD album about Lynyrd Skynyrd called Southern Rock Opera? They boast three guitar players, just like Skynyrd. Hood even hails from “Sweet…

Now here’s a double bill that’s either heaven or hell, depending on your perspective. Far be it from me to tell you what to think, but here I am, so I vote for the latter. A good 99 percent of the time, any guitar solo over 12 bars long feels…

Grand Champeen doesn’t just wear its influences and passions on its sleeves. This Austin combo actually prints ’em up in bold type on a faded tour t-shirt. “Let It Be, Let It Bleed, On the Beach, The Gilded Palace of Sin, Heaven Tonight and The Kids Are Alright” shouts out…

In a nifty bit of yin/yang, Lee Ann Womack both embodies and dispels the simplistic Nashville saw about “three chords and the truth.” Sure, the song is the heart of it all, something this East Texas gal learned early on from her disc jockey father, musical schooling in the well-regarded…

At first glance, the touring package of Bob Dylan and Merle Haggard boggles the imagination. Is it some musical version of a national unity ticket for the 2008 presidential race pairing Hillary Clinton and John McCain–the rabid leftist with the old-school conservative? Or is it a bout between competing song…

After amping it up on World Without Tears and Live @ The Fillmore, Lucinda Williams brings it all back home to her folkie roots. By stripping her stage show down to just her and masterful guitar foil Doug Pettibone (as much the star of the aforementioned albums as Williams herself)…

What’s the price of fame? For Sheryl Crow, it was a body count in the wake of her debut, Tuesday Night Music Club. When her record label was reluctant to release her first stab at an album that she cut with producer-to-the-stars Hugh Padgham, the one-time back-up singer was brought…