Texas Platters

David Grissom

String-slinger David Grissom has been a fixture on the Austin music scene for three decades, wielding his Paul Reed Smith guitar for everyone from Joe Ely and Lou Ann Barton to John Mellencamp and the Dixie Chicks, not to mention leading Storyville and his on-again/off-again bar band the Booze Weasels. Through all that he's also nurtured a singer-songwriter side on display for most of How It Feels to Fly. His fourth album bends his usual guitar flash to the will of the songs, contributing appropriate fills and tasteful solos to the pop tunes "Overnight" and "Georgia Girl," blues rockers "Never Came Easy to Me" and "Bringin' Sunday Mornin' to Saturday Night," and the soulful roots-rocking title track. Even the instrumental "Way Jose" colors deftly inside the lines. Grissom doesn't cut loose until the live tracks appended at the end; covers of the Allman Brothers Band and ZZ Top provide all the six-string bling longtime fanatics could want.