(Reckless Records) Bill Chambers is the patriarch of Australia's royal family of country music, The Dead Ringer Band, which consists of Bill, wife Diane, son Nash and daughter Kasey. He's also known for his duets with another fellow Aussie, Audrey Auld. Daughter Kasey has gone onto garnering attention here in the States with the release of her highly acclaimed solo album, Barricades & Brickwalls. Audrey Auld seems to be following suit, as her latest effort, Losing Faith recently cracked the top 10 on the Americana chart. Bill has been playing his distinctive style of guitar, dobro and lap steel in Kasey's band. When she took time off after the birth of her baby, Bill decided to use the downtime and make his own solo album. Sleeping With The Blues was originally released last November as an import, and Reckless Records has recently re-released it, giving it wider distribution.

Although Bill calls Australia home, it seems while on tour with Kasey, he left his heart in Texas. Sleeping With The Blues is done in Texas singer/songwriter tradition, and if one didn't know Bill wasn't born and raised there, they'd never have guessed otherwise. Bill's voice is gruff and world weary, the songs raw and honest. The album is also not entirely solo, as he reserves three songs for keeping the family ties strong. He duets with Kasey on a wonderfully rustic cover of John Sebastian's "Stories We Could Tell," their voices blending flawlessly. He brings the whole The Dead Ringers family together on "Hold You In My Heart" on which the song conjures up echoes of The Carters. Bill co-wrote "The Whiskey Isn't Workin' " with Audrey Auld, and brings her in to duet on this spirited tongue-in-cheek honky tonker.

Bill declares his fondness for Texas in the disc's opening track, a barroom weeper about a barroom romance "Dreaming Bout Texas," where he even namedrops several of Austin's favorite music haunts. His gruff voice adds a poignant vulnerability to his outstanding cover of Marie Gauthier's dark "I Drink," the tale of a confirmed alcoholic. The arresting melody of the acoustic "Devil's Ball" tells of how music is the only life he's ever known and includes a shout out to George Jones as being "the man." The slow steel driven ballad, "Sometimes" reflects on the ups and downs in a relationship, while the acoustic "Promises" is the re-evaluation of one. Lost love is addressed in the outstanding title cut "Sleeping With The Blues," with it's lilting Tex-Mex melody, and is approached as a mournful lament in "The Last Thing I Expected." Bill kicks things up and has a genuinely good time with the straight up honky tonker "Gimmee One More Chance" and has some riotous fun with Fred Eaglesmith's "Big Ass Gargage Sale."

With daughter Kasey and duet partner Audrey Auld finding success in the U.S. with their latest efforts, it seems only natural that patriarch Bill Chambers would make it a family affair. Sleeping With The Blues highlights Bill's strong songwriting, his talent on guitar, dobro and lap steel and effectively proves that the only thing that separates Australian country music from American country music is thousands of physical miles.

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