Clover & Rachel Carroll

Clover & Rachel Carroll

In keeping with the title, the art for Texas Routes is a road map of the state. Thematically, then, the album is a rambling journey through the one-stoplight towns and back roads across Texas. Husband and wife Clover and Rachel Carroll play acoustic guitar and standup bass, respectively, with pals Bill Thurman on fiddle, Shawn Spiars on banjo, and Paul Sweeney on mandolin all stepping in. Clover is a tremendous guitar player in the Merle Travis finger-picking style, and together the couple's harmonies are pitch-perfect, Rachel Carroll being possessed of a sweet, demure voice that calls to mind the Hot Club of Cowtown's Elana Fremerman. The music is a mix of bluegrass, Western swing, country, and traditional music, as charming and old-fashioned as the Model A on the back of the disc. Songs about barbecue, rodeos, and small towns are mixed in with traditional numbers like "Under the Double Eagle," "John Henry," and "Cowboy's Sweetheart." Interviews with various Lone Star old-timers are interspersed between songs to tie things together, and taken together, Texas Routes is enough to make you forget about traffic, high rents, boom-and-bust cycles, and light-rail debacles. There's a whole lot of the old Texas left, and the Carrolls help bring it home.