Saratoga blues man Phil Drum often refers to Michael Eck as a "songster," a descendant of those street singers who had little regard for definitions of style, preferring instead to play all types of songs as long as they moved either the heart or the feet. Eck has certainly spent some time listening to the likes of Lead Belly, Skip James and Woody Guthrie but he's also dropped the needle on Joe Henry, Dave Alvin and Gillian Welch.

If he is a songster, it's of a very contemporary stripe.

As a songwriter, Eck does his best to fuse the drive and passion of those early greats with a modern lyrical sense all his own. He calls his thing "maximum solo acoustic" and it's maximum in every way, from his hulking frame and primal-folk bashing to his quiet country-tinged ballads. It's roots-rock that traces the bloodline from Blind Lemon Jefferson to Hank Williams, and from Tim Hardin to Tom Waits.

In 1995, after years spent in too many hardcore, cowpunk and R&B bands to mention, Eck pulled out his battered old Martin D-18 and recorded his long-awaited debut album, "Cowboy Black" -- a direct to two-track collection of road-weary songs written in Texas and Louisiana. The album garnered plenty of critical acclaim and established Eck as a literate new force on the songwriting scene -- one influenced as much by Sam Shepard and Raymond Carver as by Johnny Cash and Townes Van Zandt.