Viva Luckenbach
Luckenbach was virtually a ghost town in the Texas hill country when local rancher John R. "Hondo" Crouch bought it up in the early '70s and turned it into a laid-back small town, in the process building an anything-goes dance hall of his dreams. Jerry Jeff Walker recorded his breakthrough progressive-country albumViva Terlinguain Luckenbach in 1973, and he celebrated its 20th anniversary by cutting another live album in the same dance hall. The more sensibly titledViva Luckenbachis just what we've come to expect from Walker: the sloppy but exuberant combination of raise-a-glass party songs and sentimental ballads that have made Walker the Jimmy Buffett of Texas.--Geoffrey Himes