Record Reviews

RC Banks

Conway's Corner (Loudhouse)

There's a certain gritty soulfulness that imbues the music of RC Banks and brings to mind the old adage coined in the George Jones song title "Ragged but Right." Banks is one of the countless musical emigres who left the windswept high plains of Lubbock not long after the Ely/Hancock/Gilmore exodus, and brought with him to Austin a rough 'n' tumble roadhouse swagger that he sometimes counters with a disarming sensitive side. A veteran of innumerable local bands ranging from Ponty Bone's Squeezetones and Zydeco Ranch to the Texas Sheiks and the New Cotton Kings, Banks is no stranger to the Texas roots amalgam as he clearly demonstrates on his fourth album, Conway's Corner. If you've come for a seamless, polished sheen, look elsewhere. Banks makes no bones about his down and dirty intentions right from the git-go with the raucous one-two punch of "I Got Love" and "Courthouse" to open the album. He ably blends swamp blues, cajun waltzes, country laments, Texas shuffles, and juke joint stomps into a potent concoction that doesn't dally with superficial niceties. You have to smile, however, by the way he cops with not-so-subtle adroitness from the likes of Dylan's "Maggie's Farm," Guitar Slim, and most tastefully, a note-perfect Jimi Hendrix lick. Other than closing out with an uncharacteristically cheerful ode from back home on "South Plains Panhandle Fair," Banks has let loose with a no-frills celebration of the good times, hard knocks, and broken hearts of Texas Saturday night.