Joe Pernice, 35, has a kind of Clark Kent dichotomy to him, a surreptitious strength under a sensitive façade. In most of his photographs, Pernice looks like he just stepped out of a television police drama — tough, a little sensitive, very urban and very ethnic, which fits well with…

Tim McGraw is a kind of fluke — he’s got movie-star looks and a big old hat, and to the casual browser he might seem like a post-Garth clone, especially considering that so much of his public presentation is tied to his marriage to country pop diva and video glamour…

They’re the Hot Club of Cowtown, and they stand front and center in a new generation of young pickers and grinners who carry on their shoulders musical traditions that stretch back as far as the 1920s and as late as the ’40s and render those arbitrary bookends meaningless with wit,…

Soundtracks are usually little more than product packaging for the studio or the label, an effort to attach extra marketing to what might only be a successful motion picture. This one’s different. As a movie, The Slaughter Rule made a name for itself in 2002 at festivals, and last month…

Kathleen Edwards is not a carbon-copy winsome angry waif, in spite of what the tunes on Failer might suggest. True, the songs on her debut are retorts to a world of pain, of sour nights, bitter mornings, hard drinking, bad love, bad music and excess. There are, however, a few…

Okay, here’s what George Strait has done: Without scandal or undue hype, without compromising quality or any capitulation to fashion, Strait has adhered to his name. The veteran superstar, who releases his first career live CD For the Last Time Live at the Astrodome on February 11, has managed to…

“Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough,” said the John Huston character in Chinatown. In music, the same time-plus-trash formula often leads to the next big thing. Which brings us to the Coral, a six-piece Scouse combo, all in their late teens and very…

A person can’t be too careful when it comes to calling another person by his right name, especially when he has several. Hank Williams III was born Shelton, which is what his good friend and fellow country singing rebel Wayne “the Train” Hancock calls him. Others call him “Hank 3,”…

There’s a saying among French Catholic schoolboys. “When you blaspheme, it only means you still believe,” this quaint morsel of wisdom goes. That may or may not be true, but it sure sounds about right. Christmas is a little like that contradiction: The harder you pump up the cynicism, the…

Clarence Fountain is the solitary spokesperson for the sightless gospel vocal troupe Blind Boys of Alabama. Interesting, because Fountain is not the world’s most gregarious guy. He speaks softly and with few unnecessary words. Not that he’s unfriendly, mind you, but considering he turned 73 late last month, has been…

“I think Darryl Worley might be the next Alan Jackson.” These words pour from DreamWorks Records president James Stroud, producer for Worley, among the year’s breakout country stars. That’s a tall order when you consider that celebrated everyman Jackson (“Chattahoochee,” the 9/11 memoriam “Where Were You”) walked off stage at…

Guys like Delbert McClinton ought to be looked at the way people think of fine wines: Some things just get better with age. The 62-year-old McClinton finds ways to strengthen and sharpen his vision, telling stories that are personal and universal with the same few strokes. The cover of McClinton’s…

The late singer-songwriter Phil Ochs is often quoted as having said that the last real hope America had for a revolution would be if Elvis became Che Guevara. Imagine Elvis as some radical rockabilly martyr who one day decided to turn Graceland into a compound, surround himself with dozens of…

In the beginning of the movie Reservoir Dogs, gangleader Joe, played by Lawrence Tierney, is confused by the discourse taking place around the film’s famous round table. His partners in crime are discussing someone whose name he doesn’t recognize. “Toby?” he asks his fellow diners. “Who the fuck is Toby?”…

“There’s a very cool geezer element to this record,” says Tempe-born Jon Rauhouse, referring to his new CD, Jon Rauhouse’s Steel Guitar Air Show. “It isn’t very much in keeping with what people necessarily think of when they hear the name Bloodshot.” There are plenty of other unique aspects to…