John Baumann

There is a place on Interstate 10, somewhere east of El Paso, where the road dips so far south that America starts to fade. In the hours past midnight, the radio dial is mostly static, sliding in and out of signal. What gets through is haunting, like the sound of an old Victrola playing songs about broken hearts in broken Spanish. In the autumn, the winds toss 18-wheelers from shoulder to median and it’s still 100 degrees in the dark. There’s heat lightning in the distance, maybe from a storm 200 miles away at the next exit. The light at the end of the tunnel is an old town called San Antonio, offering salvation in the sweetness of its pan de muerto and the cool of its slow, shallow river. If that road – in all of its chaos and its quiet – had a soundtrack, it would be John Baumann’s Border Radio.

Baumann takes a cue from storytelling greats like Townes Van Zant, Guy Clark and Lyle Lovett,  Adam Carroll, John Prine, Jackson Browne, James McMurtry, Nanci Griffith, leaning more into observation than experience in his writing, preferring to inhabit stories that are not his own. And on Border Radio, his sixth album out October 6, the stories range from a man’s love for his “Gold El Camino” to falling in love in the red light glow of “Boy’s Town.” On each track, it’s clear the Austin-based Baumann is at the top of his songwriting game. “Saturday Night Comes Once a Week” could easily be a country radio hit, while the lyrical deftness and timelessness of “The Night Before the Day of the Dead” and “Turning Gold” rival the best of his heroes’ work.  

Tickets $20   Door $25

Doors 7:00 p.m.

Showtime is 9:00 p.m.