CJ Spins for May 2026
Spotlighting music we're listening to lately.
by Adam Van Winkle, Cowboy Jamboree editor-in-chief
Cowboy Jamboree's been pretty straight forward about our musical tastes over the years. Cowboy Jamboree's series of musically incited anthologies (linked on our homepage) pretty well show our pantheon of favorites. Heck, we list out the musicians that in part inspired the tastes of the magazine and press from the beginning.
We've also reviewed many of our favorite new releases and artists like, Terry Allen and the Bloodsucking Maniacs, Rebecca Porter, Will Payne Harrison, Ags Connolly, James Gedda and the Big Breakfast, and Matt Moran and the Palominos.
This series, instead of waiting for new releases to review, will focus simply on what CJ and some of CJ's favorite writers are listening to in heavy rotation.
For this one I'm focusing on some sad bastard Americana stuff I've been digging lately.
We've also reviewed many of our favorite new releases and artists like, Terry Allen and the Bloodsucking Maniacs, Rebecca Porter, Will Payne Harrison, Ags Connolly, James Gedda and the Big Breakfast, and Matt Moran and the Palominos.
This series, instead of waiting for new releases to review, will focus simply on what CJ and some of CJ's favorite writers are listening to in heavy rotation.
For this one I'm focusing on some sad bastard Americana stuff I've been digging lately.
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WEST TEXAS EXILES
Atmospheric harmonica hits me right in the heart. Whether you drop the needle on the West Texas Exiles' 2023 EP, Volume 1, or the 2025 LP, 8000 Days, the opener will be rich with harmonica that evokes something soul stirring. It's enough to hook me anyway.
That's not how I first came across this 5-man band of Marco Gutierrez, Daniel Davis, Colin Gilmore, Eric Harrison, and Trinidad Leal, all from somewhere, fittingly, in the vastness of west Texas.
I was at the Big Ears Festival in in March to see two performances. Yes, I would have loved to taken in the entire 4-day festival, but I have a job and a family and all I could swing was a Friday day pass. So I made the eight hour round trip trek from South Carolina to Knoxville for two shows.
The two performances? Terry Allen and the Panhandle Mystery Band Friday night, and before that, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock in the afternoon (who in a pleasant surprise were accompanied by Allen's son, Bukka Allen, on accordion). During that stellar first show, Gilmore mentioned his son's band. I made a mental note to check them out.
How nice then when Colin and West Texas Exiles popped up on my social media feeds in a video playing alongside, who else, Terry Allen with the Panhandle Mystery Band and Jimmie Dale Gilmore last year at the elder Gilmore's 80th birthday party concert, aptly titled "Jimmie Dale Gilmore Marks It 80" (IYKYK). The song they were tearing up? Allen's "Amarillo Highway." (By the way, I've gotten an early listen to the Exiles' studio version of the song--sans Allen and Jimmie Dale—and it's something stellar.)
So it was through three west Texas music legends—Allen, Gilmore, and Hancock—that I came to find the West Texas Exiles.
Since, I've had Volume 1 and 8000 Days in pretty heavy rotation.
The former's opener, "Exiles," is a desert blues number with lyrics that turn self-doubt into a superpower and details that are pure grit lit:
I stayed lit too long
Baby now I'm all burned out
I stayed lit too long
Baby now I’m all burned out
But If you like em all busted and broke
A cautionary tale and a joke
That’s what I’m all about
You can call me the west Texas exile
Call it the final retreat
I’m out herе trying to out run my fate
While I still got my boots on my feet
If I had a soul
I would have sold it a long timе ago
If I had a soul
I would have sold it a long time ago
Hey devil, where’s that dotted line?
Gladly claim what’s mine
A bottle of scotch and some Marlboros
(That’s all I’m worth!)
Underscoring these dynamite lines are superb strings and keys—and that harmonica of course—a whip sharp desert rock Americana band.
"Hotel Tomorrow" from Volume 1 sees the band trade vocals and verses with more existential doom proselytizing:
Hotel Tomorrow
Yesterday's sorrow
Making of my own
Misfortune, I know
Down on the low road, pickin'
Pieces of my soul
I just hope this light I carry don't burn out
And yet, all this down-and-outness lifts me up to listen to. Whatever cosmic lightning brought these guys together, they were meant to collaborate on these rollicking jams of lost souls. Of spiritual exiles. These are special songwriters. These are special musicians.
8000 Days keeps it going with the title track's rumination on a couple doomed to stay together:
Sunday nights off Montwood Street
Drinking the paycheck - who's got the keys?
This place will give you what you want
But take what you need
There's a stranger in the driver's seat
Smoking a bowl full of apple seeds
Back then I got stoned
Now I'm on something else
So maybe we go out, maybe we don't
But alone together beat being alone
Just buzzing around till we fell off the edge of town
Colin sounds most like Jimmie Dale on one of the songs he wrote, "Circles in the Yard," where a man becomes a dog that stays in the yard rather than going for the one he wants:
What would it be like to talk, to touch
But tall is the grass now, up to my ears
Many are the thoughts many more are the fears
So I'll duck my head till the lightning clears
And stand by holding my guard
And keep running circles
Running circles in the yard
Why he can't go for it is made absolutely plain later:
If I step out in the road with you, you bet
Lost and run over is what I get
Picture you and me adrift on the open sea
I know dreams and wishes come true
But they don't come free
The speakers in these songs are exiled from love, from happiness, from dreaming, from hoping. Their souls are as desolate as a lonesome West Texas wind. Perhaps it's that very wind in the land of this band's origins that has swept away the optimism. As the line goes in the Gutierrez-penned "Wind's Gonna Blow," "You know I love you baby but the wind's gonna blow."
West Texas Exiles are something wholly original, and it makes me very happy to run through these sad songs again and again.
Atmospheric harmonica hits me right in the heart. Whether you drop the needle on the West Texas Exiles' 2023 EP, Volume 1, or the 2025 LP, 8000 Days, the opener will be rich with harmonica that evokes something soul stirring. It's enough to hook me anyway.
That's not how I first came across this 5-man band of Marco Gutierrez, Daniel Davis, Colin Gilmore, Eric Harrison, and Trinidad Leal, all from somewhere, fittingly, in the vastness of west Texas.
I was at the Big Ears Festival in in March to see two performances. Yes, I would have loved to taken in the entire 4-day festival, but I have a job and a family and all I could swing was a Friday day pass. So I made the eight hour round trip trek from South Carolina to Knoxville for two shows.
The two performances? Terry Allen and the Panhandle Mystery Band Friday night, and before that, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock in the afternoon (who in a pleasant surprise were accompanied by Allen's son, Bukka Allen, on accordion). During that stellar first show, Gilmore mentioned his son's band. I made a mental note to check them out.
How nice then when Colin and West Texas Exiles popped up on my social media feeds in a video playing alongside, who else, Terry Allen with the Panhandle Mystery Band and Jimmie Dale Gilmore last year at the elder Gilmore's 80th birthday party concert, aptly titled "Jimmie Dale Gilmore Marks It 80" (IYKYK). The song they were tearing up? Allen's "Amarillo Highway." (By the way, I've gotten an early listen to the Exiles' studio version of the song--sans Allen and Jimmie Dale—and it's something stellar.)
So it was through three west Texas music legends—Allen, Gilmore, and Hancock—that I came to find the West Texas Exiles.
Since, I've had Volume 1 and 8000 Days in pretty heavy rotation.
The former's opener, "Exiles," is a desert blues number with lyrics that turn self-doubt into a superpower and details that are pure grit lit:
I stayed lit too long
Baby now I'm all burned out
I stayed lit too long
Baby now I’m all burned out
But If you like em all busted and broke
A cautionary tale and a joke
That’s what I’m all about
You can call me the west Texas exile
Call it the final retreat
I’m out herе trying to out run my fate
While I still got my boots on my feet
If I had a soul
I would have sold it a long timе ago
If I had a soul
I would have sold it a long time ago
Hey devil, where’s that dotted line?
Gladly claim what’s mine
A bottle of scotch and some Marlboros
(That’s all I’m worth!)
Underscoring these dynamite lines are superb strings and keys—and that harmonica of course—a whip sharp desert rock Americana band.
"Hotel Tomorrow" from Volume 1 sees the band trade vocals and verses with more existential doom proselytizing:
Hotel Tomorrow
Yesterday's sorrow
Making of my own
Misfortune, I know
Down on the low road, pickin'
Pieces of my soul
I just hope this light I carry don't burn out
And yet, all this down-and-outness lifts me up to listen to. Whatever cosmic lightning brought these guys together, they were meant to collaborate on these rollicking jams of lost souls. Of spiritual exiles. These are special songwriters. These are special musicians.
8000 Days keeps it going with the title track's rumination on a couple doomed to stay together:
Sunday nights off Montwood Street
Drinking the paycheck - who's got the keys?
This place will give you what you want
But take what you need
There's a stranger in the driver's seat
Smoking a bowl full of apple seeds
Back then I got stoned
Now I'm on something else
So maybe we go out, maybe we don't
But alone together beat being alone
Just buzzing around till we fell off the edge of town
Colin sounds most like Jimmie Dale on one of the songs he wrote, "Circles in the Yard," where a man becomes a dog that stays in the yard rather than going for the one he wants:
What would it be like to talk, to touch
But tall is the grass now, up to my ears
Many are the thoughts many more are the fears
So I'll duck my head till the lightning clears
And stand by holding my guard
And keep running circles
Running circles in the yard
Why he can't go for it is made absolutely plain later:
If I step out in the road with you, you bet
Lost and run over is what I get
Picture you and me adrift on the open sea
I know dreams and wishes come true
But they don't come free
The speakers in these songs are exiled from love, from happiness, from dreaming, from hoping. Their souls are as desolate as a lonesome West Texas wind. Perhaps it's that very wind in the land of this band's origins that has swept away the optimism. As the line goes in the Gutierrez-penned "Wind's Gonna Blow," "You know I love you baby but the wind's gonna blow."
West Texas Exiles are something wholly original, and it makes me very happy to run through these sad songs again and again.
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GURF MORLIX
I first made note of, or I guess noticed the unique name of, Gurf Morlix as the producer on some of my favorite albums by the likes of Butch Hancock, Robert Earl Keen, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Lucinda Williams and Tom Russell. Then one day, down a Blaze Foley rabbit hole, I saw the man himself in a Blaze documentary (Duct Tape Messiah). As he makes note there of playing with Blaze and playing on his own, I thought I should seek his music out.
Cut 'n Shoot, Morlix's 2004 album quickly became part of my regular rotation. It's country music that's mostly broken love songs, though the one that grabbed me most was the opener, "Yesterday She Didn't," a hopeful romantic tune, with some of my favorite lines ever:
Yesterday she didn't
But today she does
What I'd been dreaming
Became what was
Now I'm in heaven
And it's all because
Yesterday she didn't
But today she does
Do you see what just happened there? That's some Hank Williams level brilliant-in-it's-simplicity stuff.
Something else to know about Gurf Morlix's songwriting? He's genuinely funny. Not funny in the way of cornpone, Hee Haw country. He writes lines with witty, unexpected, ironic humor that doesn't steal the seriousness of the song.
Take the opening verse of "Were You Lyin' Down," (co-written with Jeffrey Steele) Cut 'n Shoot's second track:
Were you lying down when you stood me up?
Did you leave your lipstick on his coffee cup?
You got me feeling like a lonely pup
Were you lying down when you stood me up?
There's humor in the word play, but the lines are absolutely serious: sex and abandonment.
Then there's "Your Sister" (a co-write with Brende Fuller), where the roles are reversed, or almost reversed. On Cut 'n Shoot's penultimate track, an upbeat Tex-Mex tune, after talking of missing his love, whose love "could be as spicy as Mexican food," the speaker of the songs tells his revenge plan:
Think I’m gonna have to sleep with your sister
Since me and you broke up, I sure have missed her
I don’t even care who’s kissed her
I’m gonna have to sleep with your sister
I’m gonna have to sleep with your sister
It really shouldn’t matter all that much
Cause we don’t talk and we don’t touch
Here’s hoping darling that you understand
Losing you has made me show my hand
The "think" drives the absurdist humor here. But again, it's the best of a broken country love song: real people doing real shit to each other that absolutely hurts.
One of the brilliant things it seems to me about his albums is Morlix's stripped down style. Whether it leans more toward country (as Cut 'n Shoot does, or more toward a bluesy rock, as his most recent album, Cobwebs & Stardust does, his music feels as raw as his lyrics. In perfect wounded harmony.
The opener of Cobwebs & Stardust works on two levels. As the first few lines of the chorus come it could be a song about the salvation of love. However, as you listen to "Gimme a Reason" it turns into a shout, demanding love. With the way Morlix forcefully sings the chorus, he's screaming for someone to give him the reason to go on (the capitalization may not signal a shout itself, just the way Morlix formats his chorus lyrics on his website, but maybe he means that too):
YOU GIMME A REASON, TO TRY NOT TO FALL
YOU GIMME A REASON TO WALK, NOT CRAWL
YOU GIMME A REASON, TO GET MY LIFE STRAIGHT
BEFORE, BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE
The last line leaves no doubt that this is a wail, not a rejoice. Cobwebs & Stardust's second track, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" is not a Beatles cover, but continues down the same dark road as the opener:
I’m out here wandering, all alone, callin’ in, from parts unknown
Tryin’ to get you to answer the phone, to tell you, I’m comin’
home
DRIFTIN’, THROUGH NO MAN’S LAND
SIFTIN, THROUGH GRAINS OF SAND
OUR SOULS, ARE ENTWINED
I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND, TIL THE END OF TIME
As with the opener, the speaker needs someone to save him. He needs love to save him. And I'd wager knowing that he doesn't have that love, though that love is out there for the having, is part of his undoing. It's a theme that continues in the song "Water From Your Spring." Again the speaker needs the other:
I want you to show me, the in-between, some of them things, I ain’t never seen
I want you to tell me, where all you been, you got out, and you got back in
All I need to know, is everything, I want the words, I want the words to ring
Gimme the gospel, of an open string, however heartbreaking
As with the previous tunes, the other isn't coming through near fast enough:
I’M WAITING, I’M SHIVERING, I'M FADING, I’M QUIVERING
HANGIN’ ON HARD, UNRAVELING
I WANT WATER, FROM YOUR SPRING
YOUR SILENCE IS DEAFENING
God I love Gurf's music. He's country. He's blues. He's raw. And I think he's gonna be a regular in my rotation "til the end of time."
I first made note of, or I guess noticed the unique name of, Gurf Morlix as the producer on some of my favorite albums by the likes of Butch Hancock, Robert Earl Keen, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Lucinda Williams and Tom Russell. Then one day, down a Blaze Foley rabbit hole, I saw the man himself in a Blaze documentary (Duct Tape Messiah). As he makes note there of playing with Blaze and playing on his own, I thought I should seek his music out.
Cut 'n Shoot, Morlix's 2004 album quickly became part of my regular rotation. It's country music that's mostly broken love songs, though the one that grabbed me most was the opener, "Yesterday She Didn't," a hopeful romantic tune, with some of my favorite lines ever:
Yesterday she didn't
But today she does
What I'd been dreaming
Became what was
Now I'm in heaven
And it's all because
Yesterday she didn't
But today she does
Do you see what just happened there? That's some Hank Williams level brilliant-in-it's-simplicity stuff.
Something else to know about Gurf Morlix's songwriting? He's genuinely funny. Not funny in the way of cornpone, Hee Haw country. He writes lines with witty, unexpected, ironic humor that doesn't steal the seriousness of the song.
Take the opening verse of "Were You Lyin' Down," (co-written with Jeffrey Steele) Cut 'n Shoot's second track:
Were you lying down when you stood me up?
Did you leave your lipstick on his coffee cup?
You got me feeling like a lonely pup
Were you lying down when you stood me up?
There's humor in the word play, but the lines are absolutely serious: sex and abandonment.
Then there's "Your Sister" (a co-write with Brende Fuller), where the roles are reversed, or almost reversed. On Cut 'n Shoot's penultimate track, an upbeat Tex-Mex tune, after talking of missing his love, whose love "could be as spicy as Mexican food," the speaker of the songs tells his revenge plan:
Think I’m gonna have to sleep with your sister
Since me and you broke up, I sure have missed her
I don’t even care who’s kissed her
I’m gonna have to sleep with your sister
I’m gonna have to sleep with your sister
It really shouldn’t matter all that much
Cause we don’t talk and we don’t touch
Here’s hoping darling that you understand
Losing you has made me show my hand
The "think" drives the absurdist humor here. But again, it's the best of a broken country love song: real people doing real shit to each other that absolutely hurts.
One of the brilliant things it seems to me about his albums is Morlix's stripped down style. Whether it leans more toward country (as Cut 'n Shoot does, or more toward a bluesy rock, as his most recent album, Cobwebs & Stardust does, his music feels as raw as his lyrics. In perfect wounded harmony.
The opener of Cobwebs & Stardust works on two levels. As the first few lines of the chorus come it could be a song about the salvation of love. However, as you listen to "Gimme a Reason" it turns into a shout, demanding love. With the way Morlix forcefully sings the chorus, he's screaming for someone to give him the reason to go on (the capitalization may not signal a shout itself, just the way Morlix formats his chorus lyrics on his website, but maybe he means that too):
YOU GIMME A REASON, TO TRY NOT TO FALL
YOU GIMME A REASON TO WALK, NOT CRAWL
YOU GIMME A REASON, TO GET MY LIFE STRAIGHT
BEFORE, BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE
The last line leaves no doubt that this is a wail, not a rejoice. Cobwebs & Stardust's second track, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" is not a Beatles cover, but continues down the same dark road as the opener:
I’m out here wandering, all alone, callin’ in, from parts unknown
Tryin’ to get you to answer the phone, to tell you, I’m comin’
home
DRIFTIN’, THROUGH NO MAN’S LAND
SIFTIN, THROUGH GRAINS OF SAND
OUR SOULS, ARE ENTWINED
I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND, TIL THE END OF TIME
As with the opener, the speaker needs someone to save him. He needs love to save him. And I'd wager knowing that he doesn't have that love, though that love is out there for the having, is part of his undoing. It's a theme that continues in the song "Water From Your Spring." Again the speaker needs the other:
I want you to show me, the in-between, some of them things, I ain’t never seen
I want you to tell me, where all you been, you got out, and you got back in
All I need to know, is everything, I want the words, I want the words to ring
Gimme the gospel, of an open string, however heartbreaking
As with the previous tunes, the other isn't coming through near fast enough:
I’M WAITING, I’M SHIVERING, I'M FADING, I’M QUIVERING
HANGIN’ ON HARD, UNRAVELING
I WANT WATER, FROM YOUR SPRING
YOUR SILENCE IS DEAFENING
God I love Gurf's music. He's country. He's blues. He's raw. And I think he's gonna be a regular in my rotation "til the end of time."