Tied to the Wheel
No guitar hero this side ofJunior Brownhas celebrated the bonds between the long-distance trucker and the road-warrior musician better than Bill Kirchen. After cutting his teeth in the 1970s withCommander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen, Kirchen brings his career full circle on this truck-friendly collection. He wrote the album-opening "Truck Stop at the End of the World" with Cody, enlisted fellow Airman alumnus Bobby Black on steel guitar, and returned to the songbook of Blackie ("Mama Hated Diesels") Farrell for a pair of album highlights. Yet there's more to Kirchen's music than truckin', a range he displays on the album's honky-tonk duet of "Dim Lights, Thick Smoke," with the Seldom Scene'sDudley Connell, and a majestic rendition ofBob Dylan's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues," a showcase for Kirchen's soaring guitar.--Don McLeese