Los Super Seven

If you were driving cross-country in the '50s and '60s, you prayed for sundown, because after dark, you picked up the signals of outlaw Mexican radio giants XERB, XEG and XERF. Long before the FM revolution, the X stations played an eclectic mix of honky-tonk, blues, Texas swing, norteño, and hardcore R&B that was "too black" for mainstream radio. Los Super Seven (which started as a Los Lobos spin-off) and their A-list friends cherry-pick those early hits to provide a glimpse into the beginnings of roots rock. Delbert McClinton gives Little Willie John's "Talk to Me" all the pleading soul it needs; Lyle Lovett's sly drawl and the smoking conversation between Red Volkeart's guitar and the pedal steel of Lloyd Maines makes "My Window Faces the South" swing like mad; and Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown's "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" is as raw and powerful as anything he's ever cut.