On May 7 I went to a concert I was expecting to leave feeling lukewarm about. Hayes Carll was opening for Dierks Bentley and the Traveling McCoury’s. I’m a fan of Hayes Carll and I really went to see him, so let me start with that. He’s an artist that’s often placed in that tradition that’s epitomized by the Texas singer/songwriter like Townes Van Zandt and Steve Earle and that now counts among Hayes’s peers the likes of Ryan Bingham, Bruce Robison and others. In fact you hear a lot of influences in his music from Kris Kristoferson, Johnny Cash, Buck Owens and Willie Nelson, to Bob Dylan and David “Honey Boy” Edwards and the Delta Blues. I don’t know that he would list all these, but I hear them. Continue reading →