ROGER CREAGER
Road Show
Fun All Wrong Records
Back in the late ’90s, Roger Creager was firmly amongst the wedge of young artists like Pat Green and Cory Morrow that split the scene wide open for aspiring Texas country singers that didn’t want to wait for Nashville to assimilate and exploit. The big-voiced, endlessly energetic Creager did it as well as anyone, and by all accounts still does: Road Show’s title track describes the day-to-days of regional superstar life pretty well. This seven-song EP’s most ambitious number, “A Little Bit of Them All,” amusingly catalogs the parade of sinners and saints in his DNA, but the conflict hasn’t really seeped into his art: if anything, the 2014 Creager has doubled down on his party-hearty instincts. Like Jimmy Buffett except for with beer and inner tubes instead of margaritas and sailboats (not to mention Neil Diamond’s vocal gifts instead of, well, Buffett’s), Creager toasts river floats (“River Song”) and Mexican vacations (“Where the Gringos Don’t Go”) with all the gusto of someone who’s found a groove that works. All (or at least most) of his rowdy friends from the earlier wave of Lone Star music might have settled down, but now more than ever Creager’s still there for you if you feel like feeling 21 all over again. — MIKE ETHAN MESSICK
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