Phoenix resident Nick Nicholson is an especially earnest fellow singing in an especially earnest genre: country music. There's no post-modern irony or veiled metaphors here. When Nicholson belts out lyrics such as "I've seen Creation's glory displayed throughout the Earth / And cried as I witnessed a little baby's birth" in "Greatest of These," from his self-titled 2008 debut, he seems to mean exactly what he's saying. Even more so when he gets to the chorus, and clarifies "the greatest of these is your love for me." (Aww.) Nicholson is currently readying a follow-up album, with the first single, an inspirational ballad called "Stronger Than Whiskey," available now. In that one, whiskey represents, um, whiskey. Born in Tennessee, Nicholson has two upcoming dates at Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill in Mesa, where he plays regularly. His down-home cred is furthered by his 10 years of service in the Air Force, and his hey-I'm-just-a-regular-guy publicity photos, showing him hanging out in jeans and a T-shirt, cross around his neck, in an Old West setting. At this point, fans should brace themselves for an inevitable scandal, say, a photo surfacing of Nicholson leaving a theater after a screening of Sex and the City 2.