Ernie Palmer is seventy-six. He's been writing songs most of this life, but this is his first album. To paraphrase Buck O'Neil, he's right on time.

Ernie Palmer A Teacher, a Preacher and a Bad Farmer (self-released)

Palmer is from Georgia, but many of his songwriting heroes (Nanci Griffith, Jerry Jeff Walker and Robert Earle Keen are among those he mentions) are from Texas. This is no-hat music, folky, acoustic rambles through the hills. Or hollers. You make the call.

And Palmer doesn't go big on production. Many of these songs are just Palmer and a guitar or banjo. The songs recall tales he heard during childhood: stories about bootlegging, getting through the depression and such. The theme that runs through all of them is one of survival.

His voice, both singing and writing, is unique. I hear his influences (particularly in the way he totally owns the characters in his songs, like Griffith did), but this is his own severely rough-hewn side of americana. Easy lives aren't interesting, but regular life is chock full of inspiration. Palmer's songs are as plain-spoken as he is, and as they roll they speak volumes. A gem that should never be cut.

Jon Worley