Bonnie Raitt, friends remember guitarist Stephen Bruton

“I’ve been crying all day and never thought I’d get through this show,” Bonnie Raitt told an Austin audience Sunday night at the end of her Mother’s Day performance there, according to a report about her show on Austin360.com. She was talking about the impact on her of the death on Saturday of Texas guitarist-songwriter-producer-actor Stephen Bruton, who’d once been a member of her band and who had been her friend for nearly four decades.

She told the audience that during Bruton’s tenure with her, she’d often avoid making eye contact with him onstage because they would crack each other up during a song. For an encore, with tears streaming down her face, she played one of Bruton’s finest compositions, “Too Many Memories,” which has been recorded by Patty Loveless and Hal Ketchum among others.

He's a lot cooler now that he did: Matthew McConaughey launches record label

What do Creation Records founder Alan McGee and "Dazed and Confused" thespian Matthew McConaughey have in common? Both were seduced by roots reggae singer-guitarist Mishka.

And while McGee, who released a collection of the Bermuda-bred singer's songs in 1999 on Creation/Sony, has segued out of the record business, McConaughey is just getting started. The oft-shirtless actor (check out TMZ as of late) is ramping up his fledgling indie this month, mostly because he wants the world to hear Mishka, whose debut release, "Above the Bones," drops on the 17th. His record label, j.k. livin, a reference to a line delivered by McConaughey's stoner-sage character in the 1993 Richard Linklater film, is the latest addition to his lifestyle brand of the same name.

In an interview with Pop & Hiss last week, McConaughey talked about distribution, his 2009 release schedule and even a bit about his producing role on Mishka’s forthcoming release.

Heartless Bastards: Erika Wennerstrom moves 'The Mountain'

Erika Wennerstrom didn't have the most auspicious start to her rock 'n' roll career. When the acoustic guitar from her father showed up under the Christmas tree when she was 16, she looked at it without any particular desire to play. She finally made a go of it, but before the calluses could form she gave up, frustrated by how painful it was to press down on the strings.

It wasn't until two years later that the Dayton, Ohio, native, then a high school dropout working at a sub shop and looking for some sort of creative outlet, picked up the guitar and really started playing. She learned bar chords first and eventually forced herself to learn open chords.

"I'm still not sure I know any real chords," Wennerstrom, now 31, says in her throaty, Midwestern drawl. "I still tell people I don't really know how to play guitar." Onstage, partially hidden by a Les Paul Gold Top re-issue or a Gibson ES-125 hollow body (writers frequently mention her small stature as if amazed that a voice that big could come out of a body that small), Wennerstrom seems like a natural, simultaneously swaggering and at ease.

If her musical proficiency is in doubt -- and let it be noted that it's mostly Wennerstrom doing the doubting -- her musical instincts are not. Aside from sporting the best band name this side of Black Sabbath, the Heartless Bastards have the good fortune to ride the whirlwind that is Wennerstrom's voice. Low and husky in a range that's closer to that of a male tenor than a traditional female singer, it packs enough power that it can feel like a plague of locusts devouring a field and has enough subtlety to add ache to soft, bluesy tunes. Combined with Wennerstrom's canny ability for crafting throbbing hooks, it's lifted the Cincinnati-spawned Heartless Bastards to the level of top regional band, a label they're likely to transcend with their latest album, "The Mountain," out on Feb. 3.

Download the title track of "The Mountain" after the jump....