Denice Franke

Texas music might mean frat-house anthems and dumbed-down country: twanged-up Hootie with "Shiner Bock" and "Hill Country" references. But that's Texas Music. Let's deal with music from Texas instead. That's glorious blues (Lightnin' Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb) or beautiful rock'n boogie (Doug Sahm) or - in this particular case - luminous, literate (but not pretentiously 'literary') acoustic music. This is the tradition of Townes Van Zandt, Vince Bell, Nanci Griffith, Eric Taylor and others. It's sad-eyed, sharp-edged stuff, and Denice Franke is out there doing it the right way.