Adam Carroll is one of those songwriters with a rare command of the English language as well as an amazing sense of melody. His vocal style and wry wit immediately evoke comparisons with John Prine, but where Prine leans toward more political subject matter, Carroll tends to simply, and somewhat amusedly, report his observations on life.

If you're somewhat familiar with Adam Carroll, you may have heard "Sno-Cone Man" or "Ol' Milwaukee's Best," which are fan and radio favorites, but those songs don't do justice to the man's body of work. He is definitely one of the best lyricists we have in Texas and the music he writes complements those words perfectly.

If I may get just a bit technical for a few minutes, I'll ask you to please read through this lyric from "Red Bandanna Blues," the first song on Adam's first record, released in 2000:

The wonderful thing about Adam Carroll is that I doubt that all these examples were created in his conscious mind. In fact, I'm quite sure that many, if not most, just spilled out onto the paper, and that, perhaps, even now, Adam is not aware these nuggets even exist.

That's genius.

By the way, I didn't scour Adam's catalog to find the above lyric. I chose it only because it is the first verse of the first song on Adam's first record. Many more examples exist. I'll leave it to you to find them as you see Adam's live show or buy his albums. But do that, and be sure to pay full price for the CDs if you buy them at the show.

Have you heard of Adam Carroll, but haven't gotten around to checking him out? Don't make the same mistake I did and get to know him right now: Adam Carroll is one artist worth making room for in your busy musical life.