After five years ex-Austinite Lucinda Williams’ follow-up to her 1992 CD Sweet Old World is finally kicking up dust. The album’s title, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (American Recordings), refers not to the sound of the Grammy award winner’s voice but to the cross-country travels that inspired such geographically specific songs as “Jackson,” “Greenville,” and “Lake Charles.” American’s owner, Rick Rubin, is mixing the record, which should be out in late summer; it is being co-produced by San Antonio native Steve Earle and features an array of guests, including Austinite Charlie Sexton.
Speaking of Sexton, the guitar whiz is producing and playing on Austin singer-songwriter Michael Fracasso’s new CD for Bohemia Beat. World in a Drop of Water is “a Biology 101 look into the microscope,” says Fracasso. “It implies that when you look closely at things, you can find a whole other world to explore.” The record spills into stores in September.
Brave Combo is attempting the musical equivalent of a double axel: The Denton polkaholics are rerecording Elvis Presley songs with a Latin flavor—including a salsa version of “Love Me Tender”—to accompany a skating program for ice dancing champions Elizabeth Punsalan and Jerrod Swallow and composing music for the new Saturday morning cartoon Cyboars.
