*** Guy Clark

KEEPERS

(Sugar Hill)

The godfather of Texas singer-songwriters, Clark writes to involve our senses with a bullet's burn and the smell of gunpowder smoke. The old men boarding at his grandmother's hotel back in the 1940s inspired songs like "Desperados Waiting for a Train" and the cinematic "The Last Gunfighter Ballad." Guy knows that these Wild West memories are part bravura fantasy. Including chestnuts and new songs, this low-key 15-track CD makes it clear whom Jerry Jeff Walker turned to for material back in his heyday. Clark's quiet, seasoned voice suits the subdued acoustic back-up sparked by Darrell Scott's bluesy dobro and Weissenborn guitar. One of Clark's fading geezers claims, "Heaven was just a Dallas whore." But "Texas Cookin' " leaves us wondering whether Clark's own nirvana is more gastronomical than sexual: "Only two things that money can't buy. That's true love and home-grown tomatoes."

-- Bruce Sylvester