Chris LeDoux was born Oct. 2, 1948, in Biloxi, Miss., and raised in Austin, Texas. His father was an Air Force pilot who was posted to various parts of the United States. His grandfather, who had served in the U.S. cavalry and fought against Pancho Villa, encouraged LeDoux to ride horses on his Wyoming farm. LeDoux attended high school in Cheyenne, Wyo., and while still at school, he twice won the state's bareback title. In 1967, after graduating, he won a rodeo scholarship and received a national title in his third year. In 1976, he became the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association's (PRCA) world champion in bareback riding.

I ran into Dave Grissom at the PRS booth while I was down in Austin, TX for Summer NAMM. He was making an appearance to help promote his new Paul Reed Smith Signature Guitar - The DTS. After meeting with some of the PRS execs I had a chance to talk with Dave a bit about items ranging from his show that night with Storyville, his new signature guitar, recent projects - which led us to his new solo CD entitled Loud Music.

With Chris Knight's debut album, released on MCA Nashville's sister label Decca, critics of the new country sound of the late '90s began to hold out hope that Nashville could return to the genuineness that it had been so lacking for years. That hope was rooted partly in Knight's singing, full of country-rock phrasing clearly modeled after Knight's hero, Steve Earle, but even more so in Knight's songwriting.

Scott Walker (Scott Engel) was one of the many pop stars of the Sixties who delivered radio-friendly refrains for mass consumption, aided by a marketing campaign that emphasized his cute looks over his uninspired songs (rings a bell? yes, those were the days of the teen idols and of the Beatles). However, his solo albums wed that old-fashioned easy-listening sound to philosophical meditations in lugubrious settings, and therefore created a new form of ballad, predating David Bowie, Julian Cope and trip-hop.

The combination of Simpson's folk-blues-inflected guitar with the exoticism of Man's pipa creates a most unusual sonic world, a place where East meets West and the blues reign supreme.

It's one of his earliest memories: He's four years old, standing up on a box in front of his father's big band, baton in hand, conducting. Though his dad stood behind him, doing the real work, for Dan it was a foreshadowing of what his life would be -- following in his father's footsteps to become the leader of the band. "It was an amazing feeling," he declared decades later during a series of discussions for these notes. "To be immersed in music. It felt both very magical and powerful. And I was fearless."

This 26-cut compilation rounds up virtually everything ever recorded by the Left Banke, the awesomely talented pop band best known for the classically-influenced 1966 hits "Walk Away Renee" and "Pretty Ballerina." Songwriter/pianist/guiding light Michael Brown composed some of the loveliest melodies of the era, which were typically fleshed out with complex contrapuntal harmonies and string arrangements; "Barterers and Their Wives" sounds almost medieval, while the soaring "Desiree" is positively majestic in its epic sweep. Brown left before the recording of the band's second album, which means that the quality level dips slightly near the end of the disc. Despite this, any '60s pop collection is woefully incomplete without it.

Saint Mary of the Woods, McMurtry's sixth release, is the first of his albums that he's produced himself, taking the reins from such old pros as John Mellencamp, Don Dixon, and Lloyd Maines. It shows that the Texan has finally grown into his darkly nostalgic Western wear; at 40, he's now old enough to credibly look homeward.