Texas singer-songwriters aren't so much a genre as an infestation. They spring up like a hill of fire ants—overnight you could find a handful clogging up your empty stage and begging for a bar tab. You can't necessarily make a killing burning oil from Galveston to San Antonio, but you can keep yourself employed and harvest tons of material for the next show. Shaggy-haired, hard-touring Hayes Carll has kept his eyes open and followed the well-worn path of such more-legendary-than-popular heroes as Robert Earl Keen and Lyle Lovett; he's a few steps ahead of his fellow fire ants because he's clearly read a book or three, and he knows... More >>>