A two-time winner at the prestigious annual Kerrville Folk Festival competition, Eric Taylor would probably be as celebrated as Texas contemporaries such as Guy Clark, Lyle Lovett, Nanci Griffith, and the late Townes Van Zandt if not for a sporadic recording career (four albums in 20 years). Nonetheless, his dark, earthy, commanding folk-blues influence can be heard in their music; both Lovett and Griffith (Taylor"s ex-wife) have recorded his songs. Scuffletown, Taylor"s 2001 return, includes nine bleakly powerful originals, along with two Van Zandt covers; the Van Zandt connection is a natural, given that Taylor"s own sardonic originals possess a similar melancholy beauty and minor-key fatalism. "White Bone," for instance, is about the spiritual and cultural plight of an albino born into a religiously conservative black community. "Your God" expresses scathing moral indignation over the brutal murder of James Byrd, the African-American man from Jasper, Texas, who was dragged behind a pickup truck by mindless white thugs. Yet there"s a slightly lighter, cautiously playful touch to songs like "Delia/Bad News" where Taylor pays splendid homage to cherished blues influences. --Bob Allen