(Self-Release) Our favorite cosmic cowboy, Opie Hendrix is back with the follow up to Smashed Hits and delivers us another dose of 'mind expanding country music' with San Jacinto. In true Opie tradition, there's no song on the disc called San Jacinto nor one that even refers to it. He decided on the title because he said it sounded cool, like the titles of ZZ Top's early albums such as Tejas and Deguello.

That said, Opie takes us on an excursion through his world of maximum C&W where he covers just about all the bases. He moves effortlessly through the classic Hank Williams style hillbilly honky tonker, the outstanding "Can't Even Yodel." He keeps in hillbilly mode with the bluegrassy "Texas Love" where he cleverly takes the melody and moves back and forth between a slow, loping high-lonesome sound to a fast toe tapper. Opie offers up some of his famously irreverent X-rated humor in the utterly infectious honky tonker "My Favorite Waitress," which won him song of the year honors at the Houston Press Awards. He adds a touch of an alt-country sound to the Bakersfield two stepper "You & Me," while he adds a little bit of everything from honky tonk to some jazzy swing in the bouncy "Little Party." He breezes into outlaw country territory with the chugging, pounding beat of David Fahl's terrific "Should've Known Better," with whom he also duets on the song, complete with an irresistible sing-a-long chorus.

Opie moves into a bit of a retro mood with the gorgeous mid-temp ballad "Beautiful And True," with it's dreamy Latin beat. He conjures up a heavy dose of aching moodiness with the shuffling weeper, "Two Swinging Doors." A slightly ragged, shuffling crooner rendition of "Mr. Blue" provides some kitschy fun. "It's My Life" with it's pretty melody, is a mid-tempo ballad Opie delivers as a country-folk-rocker. The very cleverly titled full throttle "You Don't Care (Slight Return)" starts out as blistering cowpunk before settling down into a high octane Bakersfield tinged two-stepper, while "Golfing And Gravy" is an all out trashing country fried headbanger. He returns briefly to his blues roots with the grinding slow burn "Things Gotta Change," that includes some killer guitar licks. To round things out, he tosses in a couple of very brief, left of center 'musical interludes,' the tongue-in-cheek disc opener "Intro Tom Petty," and a steel instrumental "Suddenly Susan."

Opie Hendrix stays a bit more on the straight and narrow honky tonk path with San Jacinto than he did with Smashed Hits, but his songwriting remains strong, sharp and clever and his covers are well chosen and witty. Vocally he seems to have even gotten stonger, as he proves equally as adept at the most traditional of country to the more noir moody fare to his forays into the more blistering headbangers. Opie has topped his terrific debut Smashed Hits with his latest release San Jacinto and proves he's got what it takes. Now, will somebody please sign this guy to a record deal already?           

San Jacinto is available at Opie's live shows and a few record stores in Dallas, Houston and Austin. The disc will be available soon on his website: www.opiehendrix.com

AnnMarie Harrington TakeCountryBack October 2003