I'll be spending Halloween night shuttling Darth Vader and Princess Leia around the neighborhood and then serving up goodies to any ghosts and goblins passing by. But for those of you willing to venture away from home there will be some scarily good shows around central Texas.

Here in Austin, the White Ghost Shivers will host their fourth annual Halloween Ball at the American Legion Hall. Tickets are $40 in advance, $50 at the door — with all food and drinks included in the price. Admission is limited to 300, and there will be a prize for the best costume.

Ghouls and fools alike will parade around 6th Street as usual. If I was among them, I would hop over to La Zona Rosa for a Halloween show featuring the Dandy Warhols. Courtney Taylor-Taylor and company will be in full costume, and they hope their audience will be too. Tickets plus fees are $25 in advance, $27 at the door.

Stubb's hosts another notable road show: Galactic. Tickets are $22 in advance, $24 at the door. The best-costumed attendee will win $500.

San Antonio just might have the area's best Halloween show:

Cracker front man/co-founder David Lowery wants you to know a few things. Like the fact that he was born in San Antonio.
 
"My father was in the Air Force," he said. "My parents lived in Schertz, but I was born in San Antonio. We lived there for about nine years."
 
"We've played in Austin a lot more than in San Antonio," he added, "but I listened to the fans who drive from San Antonio to Austin and booked a show in San Antonio."
 
So Lowery and his Cracker cohorts, co-founder Johnny Hickman (guitar), Frank Funaro (drums) and Sal Maida (bass), will again spend Halloween in San Antonio, working a show at Jack's Patio Bar on Wednesday.
 
…read more from the San Antonio Express-News article

Tickets to see Cracker's rare Alamo City appearance are just $15.

When Kathleen Hudson reflects on her first book, Telling Stories, Writing Songs, she is struck by an imbalance in the space dedicated to male and female artists (the ratio is roughly 4:1). Also worried about the resurgence of patriarchy in American society, she set out specifically to give greater voice to women musicians in Women in Texas Music: Stories and Songs, new this fall from UT Press.

I was shocked to find that over 800 women are listed in the Texas Music Industry Guide, yet most festivals around the state feature the boys' club. Even Willie's picnic lacks female performers. I know they are not all out there knocking on doors and being told no, but I also know festival producers are not looking them up and asking. The Billy Joe Shaver Birthday Concert at the Paramount in Austin, Texas, had one woman on the lineup: Pauline Reese. And I know Billy Joe appreciates the women. It seems the young guns of Texas music get a lot more play with a lot less work. I read through a magazine that runs my monthly column, and the lineups at many festivals advertised include men only. The covers are mostly photos of men. I am sure more men are out there on the road. What does that say? That more men are talented? I think not.
 
I do have a great appreciation for the men of Texas music. Just ask Charlie Robison. I went to his 2004 CD release in both Helotes and Kerrville, taking photos of Charlie and his son Gus onstage. I have a huge appreciation for Charlie and for the spirit of Guy, Townes, and Billy Joe that he evokes. I was thrilled that Emily Robison, mother and wife as well as Dixie Chick, decided to contact me and create some time for us to talk.
 
As I look back at my first book on songwriters, I am painfully aware that many women were left out. I wrote about the people around me, and it looks like most of them were men! This book became a deliberate search for the stories of women. It is not a definitive collection, but rather a sampling of a mine rich with treasures. Again, I am painfully aware that I cannot include all the stories I've heard, and that this collection is eclectic rather than definitive.
 
…from the author's introduction

Along with Robison and Reese, Hudson includes oral histories from Lee Ann Womack, Terri Hendrix, Carolyn Wonderland, Sara Hickman, Ruthie Foster, Lana and Bobbie Nelson, Tejano queen Lydia Mendoza, and another two dozen influential women.

Hudson is founding director of the Texas Heritage Music Foundation and an English professor at Schreiner University. She lives in Kerrville.

Next Friday Humanitarians Engaged in Respectful Dialogue (HERD) and the Univ. of Texas Project on Conflict Resolution (UTPCR) will honor Willie Nelson for his decades-long commitment to peace advocacy.

Nelson will receive the first Bridging Divides award at a banquet hosted by Texas Monthly editor Evan Smith, with performances by Amy and Paula Nelson, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and the Lucky Tomblin Band.

From the press release:

Willie Nelson was chosen for the award due to his commitment to resolving conflicts. Willie has committed the last 22 years to charity work, including his Farm Aid concerts that raised money for struggling family farms, his recent efforts to promote the use of biodiesel fuels, his assistance in raising money for disaster relief and his advocacy on behalf of the humane treatment of horses. In 2007, Willie founded the Willie Nelson Peace Research Institute to advance the cause of peace in our lifetime.
 
"Willie Nelson symbolizes the kind of tolerance, compassion and conviction needed to resolve the myriad of conflicts we face in our time," said HERD founder and executive director Gavin Lance Garcia. "We are honored to collaborate with the UT Austin Project on Conflict Resolution to award Willie's tireless work for peace through his various charity work and his music."
 
HERD is a nonprofit organization based in Austin composed ofentertainment industry professionals. The organization initiallyformed around a common vision to support Willie Nelson's associationwith UT, and the broader goal to take action to promote the cause ofrespectful dispute resolution in our culture. HERD has worked tobuild bridges between socially engaged entertainers and supportive institutions, educational programs, activities nationwide, as well as promote events that provide recognition to those who advance the mission of conflict resolution. Garcia, HERD's founder and executive director, has been fostering such collaborations over the last decade at UT as coordinator, researcher and director of programs at the Center for American Music, Continuing Education, Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies and Longhorn Athletics' music and basketball initiative.

The event will be in UT's Frank Erwin Center. It is open to the public, with individual tickets available for $300 or full tables for $2,500.

Jesse Dayton and Brennen Leigh have a throwback duets album coming out next month. Check out the preview video for "Holdin' Our Own" & Other Country Gold Duets, due out November 27.

I like Cross Canadian Ragweed. I really do. I own more Ragweed t-shirts than I do any other band, and I wear them with pride. The band puts on a great live show. Yet their studio efforts have been hit or miss. Mission California needs to be a defining statement, one that fulfills Ragweed's simmering potential. As the Austin American-Statesman's Michael Corcoran wrote last summer, still breathless from seeing the band rip through a show in Boise, Idaho:

Cross Canadian Ragweed is on the verge of becoming the biggest outlaw band in country — or rock, for that matter. The band should spend as much time as possible on its next studio album after the upcoming double-disc live CD. Last year's Garage and 2004's Soul Gravy shot out too quickly. The nextest needs to be the bestest. If Canada can write half a dozen more songs like "17" and "Sick and Tired" and if the band can keep on rockin' at $120 an hour, Cross Canadian Ragweed has the potential to go as far as they want.

Well, the good news is that Mission California sounds great, from beginning to end. Credit producer Mike McClure and the full band for that achievement. The bad news comes in the form of Cody Canada's inconsistent songwriting. Too many easy rhymes, too many "I'm pissed at so-and-so and here's a song about it." So what we get are tedious rebel-pose numbers like the opening trilogy of "Record Exec," "Dead Man," and "Deal."

When he drops the rebel pose, Canada can still crank out great story-songs like "Lawrence." Inspired by the wintertime sight of an impoverished street-corner family, and told through the eyes of a helpless young child, the down-tempo ballad showcases Ragweed at its best. Other bright spots include the re-recording of "Jenny" from 2002's Carney, solid covers of Chris Knight's "Cry Lonely" and Todd Snider's "I Believe You," and bassist Jeremy Plato's debut turn on lead vocals with "Soul Agent."

I'd been eagerly awaiting Mission California, and it hasn't left my in-car CD player or my at-work mp3 player over the past few days. It's more of the same from one of my favorite bands. I guess that can be construed as a good thing. But I was hoping for so much more.

(3 out of 5)

Listen: "Lawrence," "Cry Lonely," "Soul Agent," "Jenny"

Buy: Lone Star Music, Amazon, iTunes

While he's often recorded gospel songs, Everybody's Brother is Billy Joe Shaver's first full gospel album. But don't go in expecting typical gospel stylings. This is gospel gone honky tonk, imprinted with Billy Joe's own unique signature.

Each of the 15 songs carries a piece of Shaver within it. A deeply religious man, he has always stated as he does in the title cut: "It is not what goes in which defiles you, but what comes out." What comes out on this CD is a look deep into the man himself.

"Rolling Stone" offers a glimpse into Billy Joe's humble beginnings, being raised by his grandmother and growing up quickly on his own. The powerful "Get Thee Behind Me Satan" with John Anderson is a strong foot-tapper reminiscent of old-time church revivals.

"When I Get My Wings" may remind fans of his classic "Live Forever," with a similar message and uplifting feel. Shaver sings with so much passion that one cannot help but picture him standing with arms reaching out, joyously flapping away.

Not all songs are quite so poignant and religious. Shaver adds his own brand of humor in the bluesy "The Tough Get Going" and the Tanya Tucker duet "Played the Game Too Long." And he tops it all with "If You Don’t Love Jesus," in which he sarcastically states "If you don't love Jesus go to hell" — a religious tribute perhaps only Billy Joe could deliver.

The album closes perfectly with the classic "You Just Can't Beat Jesus Christ," recorded in the late '70s with Johnny Cash. Even the late Eddy Shaver appears in this song as the 15-year-old guitar master he was.

When people talk about which artists should be enshrined in the Country Music Hall of Fame, it's not often that Shaver figures into the debate. But the man is a true living legend, and if the world is a just place, then Everybody's Brother will help propel his name toward the top of the list.

Reviewed by John Walker.

(5 out of 5)

Buy: Lone Star Music, Amazon, iTunes