Roy Heinrich

Roy Heinrich rocks the honky-tonk in a style unlike most any other artist in Texas country. His neo-traditional equation melds hard-nosed and deep true country with his rocking C&W guitar sizzle in a dynamic fashion, topped with a deep baritone voice that echoes but doesn’t ape Johnny Cash. The themes in his songs range from kiss-offs with feisty one-two punches like “Twenty Thousand Reasons” (“to tell you goodbye”) and “Give Me a Kiss” (“where the sun don’t shine”) to blood-soaked character portraits  and the struggles to be found on the underside of the American dream. Heinrich does take his voice into Cash terrain on “Six Feet Under,” and shows his sensitive side on “Sad Songs On the Jukebox.” But this is largely tough stuff that’s always danceable, and Heinrich stakes out his own distinctive territory on the Lone Star turf with a barbed-wire toughness that’s a refreshing change from the usual country fare here and elsewhere.