The best honky-tonk music sounds like someone’s life boiled down to lines that are poetic in their simple precision. Very good honky-tonk simply evokes a working class life that keeps finding its way back to the barroom. Kickin’ Up Dust is the latter. I don’t believe “Pill Poppin’, Pistol Packin’ Woman” is someone’s true story, and the “don’t be a barfly like me” sentiment of “Too Late for Me” doesn’t ring true, either. But when the song is animated by the sort of wiry, blues boogie that producer Dan Baird’s Georgia Satellites were known for, all posturing is forgiven, or at least overlooked.

 

Hammond’s Honky Tonk Disciples keep it real enough, rarely confusing the denizens of the honky-tonk with trailer park dwellers or posing as faux rednecks. The band shows its rock ’n’ roll background on the southern rock “Hell Bent,” but “When I Drink I Cheat” is the sort of song that comes from a solid country background, and it’s the strongest track on a very good album.