This weeks roots CDs reviewed

DALE WATSON AND HIS LONE STARS
The Truckin' Sessions Volume 2 Mem Records ***       

I might be wrong, but I can't imagine too many readers of The Ticket are truck drivers. But I can imagine that many a truck driver would have a soft spot for Dale Watson, the unofficial musical muse to custodians of the 10-wheelers. As the title indicates, this is the rugged Texan's second collection of songs that share the trucking theme and, like its predecessor, it rolls along with easy assurance in its hardcore country honky-tonk sound. Watson is actually a complex character, a determined square-jawed refugee from 1950s twanging culture.

His world of truck-stops and highway romance seem weirdly anachronistic in the noughties. Nonetheless, Watson's barrelling baritone brings a definite dignity to this limited and clichéd genre as he switches gear between the thumping trucker anthems and his softer side. www.dalewatson.com

Download tracks: Jack's Truck Stop and Cafe, Hero

ALLEN TOUSSAINT
The Bright Mississippi Nonesuch Records ****

As producer Joe Henry puts it, the music on this album sounds “like nothing I’d ever heard before and like everything I’d ever heard”. These predominantly instrumental tunes from the 71-year-old New Orleans pianist and composer are familiar, but the manner in which Toussaint and a high-class band interpret them makes them something else altogether. The sashaying rhythms of the Crescent city sounds – the funeral marches, deep blues and midnight ballads – are still alive in Toussaint’s fingertips after a lifetime of celebrated music-making. Joined

by the likes of pianist Brad Mehldau, guitarist Marc Ribot and trumpeter Nicholas Payton, Toussaint opens the door on the past with music of extraordinary colour and life, vivid

in its immediacy and worthy of its glorious heritage. And in the same way that Ruben González reignited interest in classic Cuban music, perhaps The Bright Mississippiwill do likewise for New Orleans's unvarnished rhythms. www.none such.com

Download tracks: Egyptian Fantasy, West End Blues, Just a Closer Walk with Thee