Saddle

Train Holler

(Ditch Light Records)

When the night wind's just right, the scent of blood freshly spilled spreads for miles. Best not to ask after why, and just stay shed of it. Meanwhile, some of the finest stompdown (and darkly threnodic, when such is summoned) musicalizing that ever roused a barnful has come to call. If that don't beat the bugs bitin'. 

Recommended: "Killin' Kind," "View From the Ditch Light," "The Suitcase," "I Forsee," "Last Cattle Drink," "Calloused, Braised, and Marred," "Waterside Echo"

Videos: "Killin' Kind" (studio video)   "Last Cattle Drink"   "Waterside Echo"

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Mickey Keller & the Spitfires

Million Dollar Shack   EP

(Tessy Records)

This four-rollick Hillbilly jackrabbit wax circulates at 45 rpm, and keepin' up is gladsome recreation. Elbows-flying buck-dancers can be forgiven for thinking these poultry-pluckers are from back up in the Ozarks, but truth to tell, the drummerless three hang hats in Hannover. Cover art by Marcel Bontempi.

Recommended: "Gone Baby Gone," "My Suzy Jane," "Sneaky Pete," "I'm Ready"

Videos: "Gone Baby Gone" (live 2023)   "My Suzy Jane" (live 2022)   "I'm Ready" (features both trio footage and scenes from b/w teens B-film.)

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Rockin' All Life Long

Mickey and band played the 2025 Massen Dirt Track festival, in Lichterfeld-Schacksdorf

Geoffrey Miller

Geoffrey Miller and the Rockin' Rousers   digital and vinyl

(Self-issued)

The dust on Geoffrey's boot heels is hardscrabble certification of the pickin' bard's genuineness. From his songcraft pen and home-folks- affable guitaring flow good-humored, sway-backed, sittin'-on-the-fence minstrelsy that could raise up a barn or dig for kicks in a neon-flashing big city with nary a care, save for that specially warm honey. 

When I glimpsed song title "Meanwhile Back at the Ranch," I guessed Geoffrey would be having a time with the Buck Owens classic. Chalk that in my loss column. Turned out to be a sprawling instrumental during which the man whose name adorns the cover shuffled sophisticated dirt-road licks and dealt them out like a cowboy-hatted croupier.

To quote Ferlin Husky in Hillbillys in a Haunted House: "He picks a mean guitar!"

Recommended: "Don't Shake My Heart," "So Goes the Nation," "Good Morning Blues," "The Whip," "You're There," "Can't Catch a Star," "Meanwhile Back at the Ranch," "California Shakes"

Videos: "Don't Shake My Heart" (live)   "So Goes the Nation"   "The Whip"   "Meanwhile Back at the Ranch"

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Mickey Keller & the Spitfires

We're Gonna Ride!

(Tessy Records)

There're sound reasons one digging this might feel they've happened upon a bygone wood-cabinet Philco broadcast: Mickey, Matze, and the 'Stompin' Wolfman' are as in-their-grains nifty purveyors of Honky Tonk serenading (sans drums, natch) as one can locate in this internet age. 

Then, too, there's their insistence on using only vintage fiddleyboos at Black Shack Recording. Original material of genial home-folks disposition settles in snugly with classics of yore penned by Stan Kesler and Charlie Feathers, Ben Hall, Roy Hall, and future Louisiana Governor Jimmy Davis (who also wrote "You Are My Sunshine.") 

Steve Stick contributes vocals on a pair of tracks. And cover art by man of many gifts Marcel Bontempi gilds further. Turn up that radio dial.

Recommended: "Heartbreaking Love," "Mom & Pop," "Cold Dark Night," "I Forgot to Remember," "Hot Rod Baby," "Blue Days, Black Nights," "Tropicana Breeze," "Honky Tonk," "Pepperhot Baby," "Sweethearts or Strangers," "Let's Fall in Love," "I'm Gonna Ride," "Three Alley Cats"

Videos: promo clip   "Heartbreaking Love" (live)   "Hot Rod Baby" (live)   "Pepperhot Baby"   "I'm Gonna Ride" (rehearsal room recording)  

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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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Hillbilly Casino: World's toughest bar band                                       

"I defy you to find five other bands in the U.S. that can play Hank Sr. back-to-back with Motorhead, back-to-back with Ernest Tubb, back-to-back with Tex Ritter, back-to-back with the Ramones," first-era slap-bassist Geoff Firebaugh declared.

The amalgam of crunch-blast dynamism and individualist tunecraft locates the group miles over the headset mics of choreographed in-fashion video mannequins. Profoundly American roots-music stylings old and new, raved forth unaffectedly and with devotion a-burnin' rollick, sway, and reel until time and space lose significance and all around is bacchanalian abandon. 

Currently in this barnstorming, Honky Tonk-hearted confederacy are six-string assassin Ronnie Crutcher, straight-out skins-attacker Sam Clay, double-bass wrestler Colin Taylor, and windmilling frontman Nic Roulette. 

Roulette's manically howled sermons ricochet from neon beer-signs to scuffed hardwood and from shoulder-to-shoulder blue-collar brethren to sudsily euphoric dimensions not locatable by eggheaded NASA star-charters. 

Hillbilly Casino's is a diversely splendored Rock'n'Roll of feverish honesty. And it is possible that they are the most important, most eminently grounded in Americana, and most knockabout agitative band in the land.

Hillbilly Casino's maiden wax was 2006's Sucker Punched. As was made manifest, the group was never blueprinted as hidebound. (Members then included bassman Geoff Firebaugh and drummer Andrew Dickson, who today fills in on occasion.) 

During 2008's Buy In DVD, hip-chained tumbler/mic guru Nic Roulette spelled out the combo's ethos: While roots musics gush through members' circulatory systems and have spattered innumerable of the group's stage boards, innovation, too, has formative pull. Syd Nathan and Norman Petty didn't use Rudy Vallee-era technology, after all. 

Reverence for both Ernest Tubb commoness and Johnny R. chordal blitzkrieg were etched with bold-font bravado. Billybo-butcher Ronnie Crutcher pared deftly and slammed out broadsides that evidenced forward-and-backward knowledge of the Americana repertoire. 

Videos: "Plain to See" (live)   "Shoe Leather" (live)   "Way Past Gone"    "Mimes of the Old West"   "Blanche's Song" (backstage)

Disc #4, Tennessee Stomp (Hobolight), portrayed self-made sideburned rovers. HC's anti-Industry bootstrapism -- entailing self-recording / booking / everything -- had grown organically from the band's above-all calling: taking Rock'n'Roll (in all of its sundry aspects, including Country and Punk) to barrooms full of hoarse-throated, mug-waving true believers. 

Unanticipated permutations, rendered with brawn nobody better've looked at funny, posted notice that a uniquely multi-faceted proposition had maintained its jaw-jutting residence beneath spotlights.

The band's rambunctious oeuvre towered as testament to its consequence. Every outing featured, in vigorous exercise, slap-bass navigations, Ronnie's bent-string exclamations, and percussive insistence. One hears why Hillbilly Casino is indispensible for fans the world over.

Videos: "Tennessee Stomp" (live)   "Heartburn and Heartbreak" (live)   "The Doctor" (live)   "Psycho"   "Violets in May"

Platter the sixth was Red, White, and Bruised (Hobolight).

HC had by this moment become a favorite of average working folks in Nashville and all hep points beyond. Like HC, swarm honky tonk dance floors and throw off real-world cares. Like Hillbilly Casino, folks that swarm joint dance floors and throw away real-life concerns grasp that there are only two kinds of songs - good ones and bad ones.

Each portion of Red, White, and Bruised huffed with limber-limbed freshness and an audacity possible only for dynamite-in-every-paw roustabouts. One was knocked flat by the economical storminess. 

Add in frontman Nic Roullette's irrepressible vocal declarations and onstage gymnastics, and one perceived the stuff of legends -- in their own time.

Videos: "Knockin' at Your Door" (official video)   "She's Got Tricks" (official video)   "It's Not Me It's You"   "Jibber Jabber" (live)   "Troubles"

Come now the crispest: Singles "Tow Truck" and "Red on the Line" - initially issued as 2024 digital-only efforts - landed in bins last October, having been paired on 7" Swelltune vinyl.

The ecstatic squad remained in the first rank. Founders Nic and Billy-Bo suzerain Ronnie were abetted by fresh accomplices Sam Clay and Colin Taylor in storming through characteristic Americana genre-grafting that here pulls fresh oxygen. 

In a Facebook post, balletic energy crisis Nic disclosed: "Replacing 2 members of Hillbilly Casino has been quite a challenge. The fact that these two talented young men live 7 hours away from Ronnie and I make the entire project a different animal, altogether. We are doing our best, though, and I personally feel like the band has taken strides toward cultivating a great sound that is better than I could have imagined."

Videos: "Tow Truck" (live)   "Red On the Line" 

Rock'n'Roll this unaffected, cleverly folding populist lilts and barroom stomp into forcibly guitar-mastered celebration, may never realize the corporate success that demands numbing, processed music product for the ringtone legions. 

Remember, though, that that is not the only mark of distinction. For truly, no music scene can have too many sheerly devout, crazy-from-the-heart back-alley minstrels. 

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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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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Geoffrey Miller

Everything that Sparkles

(Self-issued)

A Tele-packin' Honky Tonk habitué, with back-home boys along, thumbs to Bakersfield to buy a longhorned Bonneville from a fast-talker with one hulking bodyguard. Finding themselves before a crowd constituted of Old Milwaukee folks and more metropolitan elbow benders, Geoffrey and pals rear back and send out swinging Country that freely twangs what's on its heart and mind (including hard-luck recitations and biographical reminiscences). Whole lotta shufflin' goin' on. Het up folks havin' a high old time, gettin' their en-joys as first chair amblings from quality stock step out. The Bonneville waits at curbside.

Recommended: "Everything that Sparkles," "Heartbreak, Coming Soon...," "Exes and Os," "The Crow Flies," "Crystal Bottle," "On a Bender," "In Pieces," "Okie Road"

Videos: "Everything that Sparkles"   "Crystal Bottle"   "On a Bender"   "In Pieces"

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James Intveld

"Let's Talk it Out"   single

(Mule Kick Records)

A mind's-eye image blooms from the opening strums: a lanky buck slouched on a sagging porch, barely noticing the big rigs speeding down the long white ribbon. Alone. His slowhand picking and tuneful drawl lend plain-folks ambience to the scene. The narrative he spins aches with melancholy. 

(True, lovers' reunification is portrayed at the accompanying video's conclusion; would only that all such scenarios enjoyed blissful closure.)

James's authenticity came from years spent knocking around California in the right company. Names like Rosie Flores, Nick 13, Wanda Jackson, and the Blasters figure prominently in his backstory, as do the Mavericks, Dale Watson, and Dwight Yoakam. Too, it was James who contributed singing for Johnny Depp's Cry Baby.

Here rotates the culmination of numerous waxed productions and hardscrabble road-doggery. These grooves have a beating heart and dirt under their fingernails.

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Fast Color

(Self-issued)

Lead-off "Blue Collar Blues" is far too authentic to have been penned by some corporate-label poindexter with baby-soft meathooks. Its personal essence and Country comfortableness crop up elsewhere, as does Rockabilly fit for folks looking to cut all kinds of loose. Flesh-and-blood hearts dropkick tech artifice into the alley. These masterly players may not be acclaimed on the world stage, but that's the globe's hardship. 

Recommended: "Blue Collar Blues," "Wanda Dean," "A Farmer's Lament," "Duke Tinnell," "Demolition Girl," "The Master's Call," "Little Teaser," "Why Oh Why"

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Billy Irwin & the Gambits

If the Shoe Fits...

(Revivalist)

I was unaware of rough gem Billy, prior to hearing of this. His irrepressible acoustic, unvarnished singing, and song-writing flair mark him as especially gifted. Initially, I'd been moved to investigate by the participation of picking phenomenon Bart Weilburg (who previously backed Wayne Hancock). Bart's prowess proved only one facet of a Honky-Tonk treasure. Also at Billy's elbow was fiddler Flora Knight. Without her peppery sawing, considerable vitality would be absent. Additional heft was lent by guest hay-bale minstrels. All involved seem to be having a whale of a time, making rafters rattle.

On Intagram, Knight wrote: "Billy writes a fine song, and from a very genuine place. What you see is what you get...The album is Country as hell..!"

Recommended: "Thorn In My Side," "I'll Find It Where I Can," "Sober and Lonesome," "My Sweet Love Ain't Around," "T For Texas," "Can't Go Back to Oklahoma," "Dad's Song," "Slow Walkin' Slow Talkin'"

Videos: "Thorn In My Side"   "Sober and Lonesome"

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