Jeff McCord on the month’s new releases

Clarence Gatemouth Brown

Timeless

Hightone

It's been more than forty years since the Orange-raised icon CLARENCE "GATEMOUTH" BROWN ruled the roost at Don Robey's Peacock Records, yet the eighty-year-old guitarist continues to crank out recordings. In fact, he's signed a new label contract, and TIMELESS (Hightone) finds his fluid string-bending undiminished. What keeps him going? Brown's musical wanderlust is insatiable; he's never met a genre he didn't like or couldn't claim for his own. Here blues, country and western, and jazz from the likes of Joe Zawinul, Fletcher Henderson, and Duke Ellington all get the Gatemouth stamp. So his voice is showing cracks and his violin occasionally makes you wince. This one-of-a-kind wizard continues to dazzle.

Charlie Robison

Life of the Party

Dualtone

Only CHARLIE ROBISON would audaciously name his album GOOD TIMES (Dualtone), and sure enough, the John Prine-ish title track mines every cliché in the book. Charlie is known for being the honey-voiced troublemaker sibling in the Bandera-raised Robison clan (brother Bruce also sings and records). His amiable, sometimes bawdy country-rock along with his wit and good looks have proved a winning combination. Robison continually distances himself from Nashville and the hat acts, and among the converted, his mouthing off has only enhanced his rep. So some fans may be surprised by how much serious material (including several tunes not by Robison) dots the landscape of the new CD. But as always, it's his bad-boy charm, on romps such as "Love Means Never Having to Say You're Hungry," that wins you over.

Motion

Freedom

"Let's do something wonderful," BEAVER NELSON sings in his new album's opener, "Let's do something grand/Let us build a monument/That we don't understand." He knows more than he lets on. There are reasons Nelson is not a star, and none of them have anything to do with the songs he writes. In that regard, he's as gifted as they come. With sharp wordplay and a rock edge, Nelson's forceful voice delivers melodic pop smarts. But the Austinite was chewed up and spit out by the music industry in his early twenties; he's overcompensated ever since, and his albums have been low-fi roots-rock affairs. MOTION (Freedom), his fifth, takes a step up, and it's as enjoyable a set as you're likely to encounter this year. Though it's still unlikely to make the Clear Channel hit list, this is music impossible to dismiss and even harder to forget.