You can blame Garth Brooks for the fact that you've never heard any of Charlie Burton's stuff on your local country station. In a marketplace dominated by Brooks' brand of pop-country drivel, any music as traditional and sincere as Burton's is doomed to live on the fringe. Current country doesn't borrow from great artistry of the past, but instead glances over to look at what top forty radio is doing and takes its cues from that in the hopes of creating not great country music, but "crossover" hits that will bring in the dough in spades. And if there is one thing Charlie Burton will never be, it's a "crossover" act.

"Rustic Fixer-Upper," the new CD from Charlie Burton and the Texas Twelve Steppers, features some refreshingly traditional country tunes, with a few decent swigs of rock and blues thrown in for good measure. It is what it is, and that's why it can't fit into the carefully- fragmented world of mainstream pop music. To paraphrase Burton himself on "Embarrassment of Riches," though many of his peers "have gone on to comfy niches," Burton's music fits into only one "niche": great songwriting and performance.

It's rare and exciting to find lyrics in pop music as clever as Burton's. A few songs are merely lyrical throw-aways, little more than short comedy pieces with gritty musical backing. On songs like "On More Than One Occasion" and "Baby Let's Play God," Burton retains his wit but directs it at the ever-changing world of romantic relationships. A lyrical highlight opens up "The Things I Wished I'd Said (To You)":

Do you remember that day you told me about "Art,"
You met him n' you had to heed your heart?
Later on that day I realized (I should have said)
"When'd they start to call that part a heart?"

Burton has the unique gift of inspiring fits of laughter as the listener grooves out to his tunes, and that's entirely due to his twistedly clever lyrics.

Musically, Burton seems to have assembled a crew of backing artists in the Texas Twelve Steppers that can follow his every stylistic shift with equal skill and talent. These boys seem just as comfortable with a slow country shuffle as they do with a gritty blues riff or a rip-roaring rockabilly tear. Mark Korpi fires off some blistering electric guitar solos on songs like "The Things I Wished I'd Said (To You)" and "Resume," while Erik Hokkanen's fiddle work is graceful throughout the album. They're loose when they need to be, and otherwise tight and polished.

The lyrical and musical high point of the album has to be "Embarassment of Riches." In it, Burton sings from the first person, taking stock of his life and realizing that although things haven't gone exactly as expected, he has a lot to be thankful for. Burton plays some gorgeous acoustic guitar on this track, and his vocal hits just the right tone of a sly smirk and a wistful sincerity. It's quiet, brilliant work, confident yet understated. It alone is worth the price of this CD, but you also get so much more. You get rock, blues, and country jumbled together and spiked with the delicious clever venom of Burton's lyrics. Now that's a real embarassment of riches.