SXSW 2012

Roger Wallace has something rare in country music today: honesty, creativity, and more than enough talent to back it all up. You could say it's all in the voice -- and not just the powerful, rangy singing voice that has gained acclaim in roots-country circles for almost a decade. That voice attempts to speak not only in notes and words, but in a distinct musical vision, as well as unique views on the world around him. His most recent CD, aptly titled It's About Time, includes 12 of the 13 songs written or co-written by Wallace, as well as a more stripped-down musical approach from his previous three CD's (Hillbilly Heights-1999, That Kind Of Lonely-2001, The Lowdown-2002) that exposes the most basic elements of country music, from its purest tones to its barest bones. In the summer of 1994, Roger Wallace left his hometown and musical roots of Knoxville, TN at the age of 22 (already with 5 neon-soaked years of live music under his belt) to pursue music as a way of life in Austin, TX. Unknowingly, he became part of a mass migration of alt-and-roots country artists to move to Austin in the early '90's, in his case literally passing right by Nashville to come to Austin -- because, as he put it, "that's where the music is." Around 1997, musical karma and music lovers' own good fortune brought Wallace together with guitar legend Jim Stringer, whose Music Room label and studio, along with his own AM Band, has since housed, honed and brought together many of Austin's best real-country artists. Wallace and Stringer, along with Wallace's steady ensemble of some of the world's finest and most respected, prolific, and sought-after roots musicians -- including Stringer, drummer Lisa Pankratz, bassists Brad Fordham and Kevin Smith, pianist T Jarrod Bonta, fiddlers Erik Hokkanen, Elana James, and Eamon McLoughlin, and Marty Muse on steel, as well as guests such as Toni Price, Derek O'Brien, and Dave Biller -- have produced four highly acclaimed CD's since 1999. "Hillbilly Heights" in 1999, "That Kind Of Lonely" in 2001, "The Lowdown" in 2002, and "It's About Time" in 2007. A new CD, enigmatically titled “Monkeytonk”, is set for release in 2012, and will continue to solidify the slightly-older and ever-wiser Roger Wallace as one of the premier real-country artists of the turn-of-the-century roots music explosion, and audiences look forward to hearing much more of the same for years to come.