From the opening guitar twang of "Flatland Hillbillies" (featuring guest vocals from Lee Ann Womack) and with lyrics like "My brother's on a north shore rig / My sister's on a pole that's slick," Rodney Crowell sets an irreverent, bad-ass course for this tribute to his home state. His characters are rich: "I'll Show Me" is an underdog torch song ("Man seeking unemployment/no gig too big to blow"), while snarling rocker "56 Fury" finds Crowell and ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons professing love for the "finest car on the road." Crowell also explores the treasure chest of Lone Star musical styles: blues ("Caw Caw Blues" with Vince Gill), mariachi ("The Border"), swing ("Treetop Slim & Billy Lowgrass"). Sharecropper's ballad "Brown & Root, Brown & Root" gets appealingly scratched up by Steve Earle's rough-hewn guest vocals. For closer "Texas Drought, Pt. 1," Crowell summons the spirit of Roy Orbison, and cements his place, alongside Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt and Lyle Lovett, in the state’s great storytelling tradition. © Qobuz