Confidentially (Nashville America, 2005)

For a couple minutes back in the early '80s, it looked like David Frizzell was going to emerge from his older brother's shadow and forge a long career of his own, but after a couple of number 1 hits and a couple of awards, he was subsumed once again under Lefty's enormous umbra.

But don't write him off just yet. Here, he picks up where he left off. His craggy voice sounds just as genuinely wounded in the war between the sexes on "Run Like the Wind" and "Warm Spanish Wine" as it did on his classics like "Lone Star Lonesome" and "I Wish That I Could Hurt That Way Again." He can still hold his own in a duet too, as he does here with Any Clawson on "Why Wasn't It Me" and John Cowan on "Reckless Wind" (and is briefly reunited with his most famous partner Shelly West on "Let the Good Times Roll" a previously-unreleased track.) Frizzell has lost none of the sense of humor he displayed on the immortal "I'm Gonna Hire a Wino to Decorate Our Home." He slams the music industry's method of manufacturing country stars in "Cowboy Hats," and he laments one of the infirmities (so to speak) of growing older on "It Takes Me All Night Long."

Welcome back to the spotlight. Maybe Frizzell will stick around long enough this time to cast his own shadow.