It takes a few listens to really get ahold of Amberjack Rice. He’s from Texas, and sounds like he moved there from somewhere on the Delta; his voice is rough-hewn and spouts a vocal styling that’s the product of a thousand gigs in a hundred smoky bars, with time in between spent singing on the porch, watching the sun set over mosquito-infested swamps. He’s country with a blues voice. He’s boogie-woogie with a mandolin on the side. Mostly, he’s a lot of fun.

Favorites? Depends on your mood. “The Other Side of the Bottle” is a mournful paean to alcohol, punctuated by Rice’s bone-chilling vocals. The song, of course, follows “99 Bottles of Beer,” which replaces the familiar “on the wall” with the wry phrase “for me.” “Mexico Way” is an all-left-channel track with just Rice and a guitar, and it somehow works. “This Should Be the Past” could be a recently unearthed Bob Wills song. He’s all over the map. This is a good thing.

Rice has a gift for instrumentation; there’s little if any overplaying on any of these tracks. He brings in friends to play the cello, fiddle, and mandolin, and the extra instruments never feel contrived. I don’t know if New Roots captures what Rice is all about, but it does make me want to see the guy if he ever tours. This is what country music sounds like when it’s made for the love of the song.

www.amberjackrice.com