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Houston Marchman's self-penned liner notes to his latest CD, DESPERATE MAN, contain the statement that "good songs are immortal." Marchman takes that philosophy with him throughout this fine disc full of powerful tunes that rely on lyrical storytelling and simple but fine acoustic musicianship --- guitar, bass and drum for the most part, with some steel peddle, electric, and dobro augmentation here and there --- while eschewing howl and feedback.

Marchman is an underacknowledged craftsman who is more content with putting out the best music he can than he is with his recognition factor. The irony of things is that his best is much better than the efforts of most who are better known. Marchman's previous work --- two studio CDs and one concert effort --- have garnered critical acclaim and an ever-growing gaggle of fans who wonder why he isn't a brighter star in the Americana sky. DESPERATE MAN will no doubt continue that pattern.

Marchman's delivery is pure Texas; one can almost hear the windblown sand skittering across the walls on tracks like "Suzanne" and "$2 Pistol." Marchman puts one in the mind of, perhaps, a darker Lyle Lovett, though Marchman sounds nothing like his fellow Texan. No, what Marchman and Lovett share is that ability to use music as a canvas for life's events while mixing the indigenous Texas music and its many elements --- polka, blues, country, and conjunto --- to create an honest and real portrait. It's also the mood that Marchman and The Contraband evoke on tracks like "Sweet Love," where they lope gently but oh so very competently along, using nothing but congas and acoustic guitars and rough but beautiful harmony vocals to propel things forward. "Desperate Man" sounds like a track that should have been on the Eagles' DESPERADO album; the opening lines "I was born to the dust of a drunk man's lust/Where his tears rusted shut heart to mind" are so damn near perfect, you know that things aren't going to get any better, no-how, no-way.

Similarly, "Broken Glass" contains the immortal line "such a lonesome sound when an angel hits the ground" with a haunting fiddle accompaniment from Heather Woodruff.

Marchman is already planning a second live CD, to be recorded in June 2003, and is touring extensively across Texas and parts of the Southwest. If he is not well-known now, it is certain that he will be. He is too good for his potential audience to let him remain undiscovered.