Wayne Hancock

Within the twanged echo of Americana troubadour Wayne's inimitable phrasing can be heard (and must be respected) his decades of zig-zagging across our glorious land, spreading common-folks' musics as only he can. On his tour bus as we speak. One of the greats.

Video: "Lonesome Whistle" (live 2026)

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Jinx Jones: Fire forever    

                        

Californian Jinx Jones's status as fretboard royalty is beyond dispute. Last March, he issued his 7th disc, Under the Neon Moon. 

In reviewing it at the time, I wrote: "Bow low when entering the palace chamber. Jinx pulls up a pillowed seat at the same roundtable as Barry Ryan, Chris Spedding, George Benson, and Danny B. Harvey. (From yon wall, gilded portraits of lamented heroes like Joe Pass, Barney Kessel, Matt Murphy, Jimmy Bryant, Danny Cedrone, Charlie Christian, Danny Gatton, and Franny Beecher peer down on proceedings.)"

Globally famed as a breath-stealing picker both encyclopedic and devastating, he's on first-name terms with outer planets of bop nonpareil. Whereas others might have left the Rockabilly / Country trail he's ridden to fame -- to assay styles more sanctified by clef-note gray-beards -- Jinx stayed put and unburdened himself of serrated thunderbolts that parted pomps and frizzed Bettie bangs.

His journey to current renown was paved with experiences that both seasoned and informed him. 

Beginning in 1976, he backed legends Solomon Burke and Howard Bomar. He then worked in one of Chuck Berry's regional touring bands. During the mid-1980s, Jinx backed Roy Buchanan in concert.

Subsequent studio session toils led to Jinx playing both guitar and bass on the 1992 En Vogue hit "Free Your Mind."

Over these years, he developed a musical voice inclusive of the finest of Americana past, his own novel articulations lending piquance. 

With seeming ease, he divines the blood fraternity of Rockabilly, Western Swing, Blues, Jazz, and Honky Tonk, dazzling with furious note-bursts one moment and in the next, spinning glorious strands of wondrous and untethered imaginings.

Imagine an advanced fretboard textbook on 10. Listeners are surely thunderstruck by Jinx's authoritative command of labyrinthine note aggregates, lightning-fleet navigations, and esoteric chordal modes. One intuits they are in the twang-upholstered, Jazzy Court of a flat-gone monarch, one for whom fair Aoede is a favored midnight-hour ship.

Jinx's Under the Neon Moon holds gripping wonders for both his established audience and untouched ears. Ecstatic notes are bent, jabbed, and fired off at jet velocity. Fierce and wooly barn-dancin' bop drops by the bale, but gentler moments also croon.

"Hittin' the Hard Stuff," "Cadillac Love Machine," and "Million Dollar Fool" point up his flair with spring-heeled rambles and wry (sometimes self-effacing) wit. Instrumental odysseys like "Prelude Noir," "Duane's Train," and "Neon Moonlight" allow Jinx the elbow room to expand at length upon artful musings.

Honky Tonk expressiveness and rumbustious Rockabilly exhortations were colorfully integrated with ebullient bursts of Jazz-inflected phrasings. . 

Now, it's not uncommon for artists to cool down once they're a few discs into recording careers. Perhaps they lose something of their initial creative fire.

But not Jinx. Never Jinx. I don't believe he'll ever lose the fire.

Videos: "License To Twang"   "Redneck Barbie"   "Cadillac Love Machine"   "Neon Moonlight"

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Nic Roulette & the Ricochets

Cindy Walker penned this for Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, who recorded it for Columbia in 1941. Now, Nashville's Ricochets put down as genteel and slyly spry a take as has caressed ears since Mr. Wills and his booted minstrels two-foured into the descending sun. And Hillbilly Casino dervish, Nic, proves to be exactly the voice needed to crest Jackpot Ridge.

Video: "It's All Your Fault"

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Dale Watson: Music as the reckoning of a man

Does Dale Watson realize how important he and his music are?

The man upholds and advances traditional Country Music -- the hand-tooled kind that reflects the aspirations, heartaches, and end-of-work-week, shout-and-stomp barroom release that a million corporate Nashville types twiddling computerized studio knobs for a million years couldn't replicate.

From his easy smile and laconic drawl to his silver, mile-high pomp and classy, Grand Ole Opry-redolent, populist troubadour clothes, Dale couldn't be anything but the authentic Country music last call luminary his loyal fan base lauds. And, issued earlier in the year by 40 Below Records, fresh platter Unwanted offers the many splendored barroom serenading for which Dale has long been known.

Steel-guitared romps bounce affably, with winks and cosmopolitan assurance. ("Gotta Try Harder," "Never Mend the Broken Spoke.") Sporadic punctuation arrives, in the person of movingly introspective material whose subdued manner is of wholly Country bearing. ("If You Truly Love Me," "If I Can.")

Located here and again are even strapping numbers that might could drive a fella to try his hand at that mustang nobody could break. ("What the Hell Happened To the Cadillac," "Don't Let the Honky Tonks Go," and the five-star title cut.)

Dale's Telecaster rhythms pulse and shimmer, his inventive leads sing out, and his ingratiating vocal warmth encourages all to pull up bar stools. Whether the clever material is dynamically uptempo, infectious and witty, articulating profound emotions, or charging gleefully into melodic mischief, adjoining players negotiate every backroad and neon-lighted avenue in sterling manner, as their leader maintains good-hearted command.

His objective importance lies in his priceless role as devoted counter to insipid Pop-Country. (A sterile contraption that can neither speak for plain home-folks, nor goad them to don whirlyspurs.) That needed function, and simply because the music itself is so damned good, is why Dale Watson is of significance to every listener who knows Real Country when he is lucky enough to hear it. 

In fact, Dale Watson and Wayne 'The Train' Hancock are of the same rank: crucial, contemporary interpreters of bona fide classic Country styles who have every right to be hailed and featured by industry award-bestowers and powers-that-be, but who are too real and uncompromising to ever turn painstakingly manicured 'show me the money' heads.      

As long as music this wood-grained and leather-worked is accessible, does it really matter that industry-calculated honors generally salute dreckish artificiality? After all, such foolish, televised corporate pageantry doesn't impede appreciators of the real deal from enjoying it. 

Historians recall Thomas Jefferson remarking, when asked how he could abide the free exercise of religions other than his own: "They neither break my arm, nor pick my pocket." With similar indifference, we will let the clothes-horses prance. 

Dale Watson must realize how important he and his music are. If he doesn't, he's the only one.

"South of Roundrock Texas" (Austin1996?)   "I Lie When I Drink" (Austin City Limits 2014)   "Don't Let the Honky Tonks Go"   "What the Hell Happened to the Cadillac" (both from new Unwanted)   

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The Tru-Tone Trio

Western Potluck Party   digital album

(Self-issued)

A back-country hayride, in which two guys and a gal (previously billed as the Bear Flag Trio, and adept at roping Hillbilly bounce), remind that voices raised in plain-tooled ditties animate true hearts and boots. Music-makin' dinguses are manipulated prettier than a peacock snail flyin' over a petunia patch at sunset. And the big-grin airs that bloom from them do jigs like to make folks shout, stomp, and clap hands.

Recommended: "Roomnesia," "Catawampus Romp," "Rise and Wine," "Weird Note Boogie," "Hold On Think Twice," "Rock Wren Serenade," "Roll and Rock," "Hillbilly Time Machine"

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Back in the Day, 2001

Al Dexter

Pistol Packin' Mama

(Roots of Country)

Voices credit Texan Al not only with crafting imperial '30s/'40s/'50s Western Swing, but for perhaps being the first to employ term "Honky Tonk" in song. So don't be put off by the cheapjack cover art; though this important music may not have gotten top-drawer handiwork it deserved, reward ambles into view when stylus touches down. 

Al penned 1943's jocular "Pistol Packin' Mama." From it, he accrued an abundance of cheddar, and it became his best-known contribution to American Music. (The pleasant ditty inspired a host of covers, as well as a Republic comedy of like vintage.) But it was far from Al's sole worthy. Also populating this wax are several numbers (like "Poor Little Honky Tonk Girl," "Down at the Roadside Inn," "Honky Tonk Chinese Dime," and "Fisherman's Boogie") that merit similar evergreen situation. 

Assembled players the Troopers proved themselves clod-kickin' crackerjacks. Often, violin-and trumpet-bounce sprang winkingly, with guitars (both electric and steel varieties) holding forth in affable tones.

As can be anticipated, given this compendium's spanning decades, stylistic evolution is apparent. Early tracks tend toward spareness and loveable crudity, whereas later ones enjoy fuller instrumentation and more production attentions.

(My one quibble concerns the mysterious exclusion of early 1946 instrumental "Guitar Polka." It settled into charts' #1 slot for a reoported 16 weeks, and boasts more big-grin animation than a barrel of digital music plugins.)

Recommended: "Poor Little Honky Tonk Girl," "I Learned About Love from You," "Down at the Roadside Inn," "There'll Come a Time," "Why Did It Have To Be," "Honky Tonk Chinese Dime," "Too Late to Worry, Too Blue to Cry," "A Good Man is Hard to Find," "Pistol Packin' Mama," "Honey Do You Think It's Wrong," "Fisherman's Boogie," "New Broom Boogie," "Hi De Ho Boogie"

Videos: "Poor Little Honky Tonk Girl"   "Down at the Roadside Inn"   "Pistol Packin' Mama"   "Honky Tonk Chinese Dime"   "Fisherman's Boogie"

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Marshall Scott Warner

How 'Bout It   4-track digital album, 10" vinyl

(Self-issued)

Were it not for the ace-high participation of contemporary players of hepcat esteem, this scribe would wager greenbacks that these cuts had been dug up circa '55, somewheres between red-clay joints and Sam's storied Union Ave. shoebox. Hillbilly hijinx through which trad Rockbilly Boogie howls its piece. Regular-guy Marshall - he of the disarming drawl that knows every note by name - handles snare-snaps with enviable efficiency. Fast company Tony Laborie (bass), Joel Paterson, Russ "Rusty" Blake, and Graham Tichy (guitars), and Jeremy "JW" Wakefield (steel guitar) just plain set the woods on fire.

Recommended: "How 'Bout It," "Ace Up My Sleeve," "Closing Time," "Cry Baby"

Videos: "How 'Bout It"   "Closing Time"

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Nate Gibson

Fear the Beer: A Musical Salute to the Milwaukee Brewers   CD, digital album

(Self-issued)

"When I got the idea for this project a few weeks back, I really wanted to finish it ASAP so that it could be a soundtrack to this year's MLB playoffs," Nate said in a late-September Facebook post.

You need not share the capped-evangelist's team-devotion to appreciate the release under consideration. Freewheeling musical good-timin' hefts it beyond strict niche-fantacism envelope. Pickers crowding the bandstand purvey Western Swing, Honky-Tonk realness, Bluegrass, all-get-out Rockabilly, and even a bit of Polka in limber manners. Hardwood teems with young maverick/flame pairings, and table-tops are knuckle-tattooed by older enthusiasts who nod cherishment.

On his site, the University of Wisconsin musicologist shares an observation: "This labor of love project is meant to serve as a soundtrack for the 2025 MLB Playoffs, to pay tribute to a team that has been an absolute pleasure to follow all season, and as a reminder to make time for the things that bring joy in life."

Recommended: "Fear the Beer," "The Bud's for You," "Down on the Farm in Nashville," "Beer Barrel Polka," "Hank the Dog," "Four Long Years," "Road to the World Series"

Videos: "Fear the Beer"   "Hank the Dog"   "Four Long Years"   "Road to the World Series"

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