Event

Bill Hearne Trio

Bill Hearne calls it 'The Road:' that metaphorical ribbon of honky-tonks, roadhouses, empty whiskey glasses, prison cells and unrequited love line with signposts and mile markers tattooed with names like Haggard, as in Merle, Williams, as in Hank, Owens, as in Buck and Lovett, as in Lyle.

He picked up the guitar when he was seven years old. "Since I didn't have people to play with, I developed a style that incorporated a percussion rhythm while playing lead riffs. Basically, I tried to be a one man band," he says. Like fellow cross-pickers Tony Rice and Doc Watson, Bill is improvisational. "I hardly ever play the same thing twice," he says. Not only does he rarely play the same thing twice, he rarely plays the same song twice. His repetoire is as vast as the east Texas plains.

Bill's just-released Frogville CD, "A Good Ride" is a hearty blend of tear-jerkers and foot-tappers. Bill's guitar phrasings have never sounded sweeter and his voice seems to only improve with age. Always rich and full bodied, his voice inhabits "A Good Ride" with a warmth and familiarty that only proves what countless fans across the Southewest have always known: Bill never lies. He feels it, and so do we. Bill is the Real Deal, a genuine article in a country-music world that seems to have forsaken its roots. In the trio, Bill is backed by Bob Goldstein on lead guitar, mandolin and banjo and Lance Quadri on bass.