Ryan Bingham "Mescalito"

Ryan Bingham uses the arid flatlands and empty highways of Texas as his muse on his major-label debut 'Mescalito', a bilingual collection of Americana that often delves into roadhouse country-rock. Years of sleeping outside rodeo arenas in a truck bed have done a number on Bingham's throat, and when he croaks lyrics like, "I've been working in the goddamn sun for just one dollar a day," it's all too tempting to believe him. When he's singing about marijuana plants or casually slipping into Spanish during a Mexican ballad, Bingham truly distinguishes himself from his country contemporaries, playing the rugged outlaw to Nashville's smoother pop-country acts.