Roadhouse Sun

2009 album from the Texas-bred troubadour. Road House Sun is a hardscrabble collection that's at once unblinkingly personal and unapologetically political - the latter a new and bracingly vivid addition to Bingham's palette. Produced, like its predecessor, by one-time Black Crowes guitarist Marc Ford, Road House Sun manages to capture a feel that's rootsy without being retro. That has a lot to do with the singer's preternaturally wizened voice - which Bingham laughingly attributes to "Too many nights in the whiskey house" - not to mention Ford's approach behind the board.