As I was listening to Lyle and driving down the road, a song comes on that really grabs my attention...a tune written by an artist by the name of David Rodriguez called “Ballad of the Snow Leopard and the Tangueray Cowboy”. (I should add that I discover all of this while driving down the road in a February snowstorm, one hand on the wheel, the other flipping through the liner notes, glancing up at the road from time to time to make sure that I haven’t driven completely off the highway). I had no idea at the time who David Rodriguez was, whether he was still alive, if he had any albums out...nothing. Actually there’s a lot about David Rodriguez that I didn’t know. As fate would have it, no more than three days later I’m tearing open a stack of new arrivals (my daytime job is music director for a network of three non-com Americana chart reporting radio stations in Virginia and West Virginia) and what should I find before me but a new album of songs by David Rodriguez entitled “Proud Heart”. Eureka!! Since that day I’ve learned much about David Rodriguez, but most importantly I have come to love this new album, quite possibly my favorite new release so far for 2006. As it turns out, David Rodriguez was once a well-known songwriter in certain Texas circles. He was named singer-songwriter of the year three years in a row by Music City Texas, he’s the father of fiddler Carrie Rodriguez of Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodriguez fame, for a time he was a lawyer representing Mexican immigrants, and in 1995 he left Texas to live in the Netherlands and has lived there ever since. And from what I have gathered the album Proud Heart was recorded in Holland back in 1995, but it is now available in the US for the first time. The songs on this album represent some of the best song-writing I’ve heard in a very long time and all are delivered with David’s vocal style that falls somewhere between Townes Van Zandt and Joe Ely. Highlights are plentiful from the rolling, tumbling opener “Out of Range” to the subdued beauty and longing of the album’s title track to the spaced-out soaring electric guitar and pounding rhythm that drives the album’s closer “Michoacan”. All told this album is a near classic. All the musicians backing David’s visions are from Holland, lead by the lead guitar work of Ad van Meurs, who wows not by the notes he uses to fill the spaces between the words but in the way he gives space for all these compositions to live and breathe. If you’re a fan of Texas singer songwriters this album is for you, but more importantly if you’re a fan of music with heart David Rodriguez’s “Proud Heart” is a must for any music collection.