River Under the Road (Lazy SOB, 1997)

Since she arrived just three years ago, Ana Egge has taken the Austin music scene by storm. The daughter of latter-day hippies who traveled back and forth between North Dakota and New Mexico for much of her youth, Egge has packed a lifetime's worth of experience into her mere two decades, and she writes about it here with an amazing eloquence.

"Dakota" is a loving look at the land of her childhood, where "I was the queen of my country/In my snow castle every day." "Fairest of Them All" is a rocking, whimsical story about a woman who escapes prison to work at the Circus Circus. Never is Egge better, though, than on "Bless Me Mother," recalling Bonnie Raitt's recording of "I Can't Make You Love Me," with both its heartbroken plaintiveness and Egge's Raitt-like voice. Musically, this album runs the gamut, from bluegrass on "The Bramble and the Rose" to folk rock on "Mind Over Matter," but by the end Egge has earned all of the praise that has been heaped upon her and more.