Tim Lee 3 - Raucous Americanus (double CD) (Cool Dog Sound)

Since going solo with 1988’s What Time Will Tell, Lee has maintained the rockin’ southern power-pop-folk edge that he and Bobby Sutliff ’s Mississippi band The Windbreakers established on albums like 1985’s Terminal . These days he collaborates with his missus of 29 years, Susan Bauer Lee , and with both writing and singing, they have enough polished material for a 21-song blowout. Most double LPs are “sprawling,” but this isn’t; it’s focused on tough, catchy, old fashioned roots-rock, with southern blues and R&B flavors as befits their Knoxville, TN base (even if Bauer nods to The Kinks on “Good Times”). With drummer Matt Honkonen holding down the big beat, “What I Have Not Got,” “Bullets in the Barn” and the blues-harmonica-wailing “Broken Line Fever” typify catchy stompers, with Lee’s inventive guitar runs and shades elevating them well beyond the trad ‘n’ trodden. (Note: Windbreakers producer Mitch Easter cameos on guitar and records and mixes a third of this.) (timleethree.com)