Trent Willmon
West Texas native Willmon doesn't just write most of his material; he does so with few collaborators, applying his smoky, tense baritone to a world he knows firsthand. On this debut, he celebrates icons of rural living such as brown-bottle beer ("Beer Man"), Southern hybrid stores (that mix bait and guns with laundromats), and the simple everyday routine of a working man ("The Good Life"). "The Wishing Well," a finely nuanced musical novelette, chronicles comings and goings in a rural barroom. His reflective, confessional "Every Now and Then" breaks the usual musical and lyrical clichés of most drinking songs. Willmon based the evocative, bittersweet "Medina Daydreaming" on memories of the Texas Hill Country. Can Willmon tear up a stage? He proves it with "All Day Long," a searing Texas fusion of Southern blues-rock and Western swing. Paired with the producer Frank Rogers, who handlesBrad PaisleyandJosh Turner, Willmon has much in common with both of those singers: 21st Century traditionalism with true staying power.--Rich Kienzle