Born in Lake Charles, La., Lucinda Williams has the keen ability to craft Southern tinged Country songs that attract both AltRock and Country fans. In her 30-year career she’s become known as a deft lyricist, which is appropriate because her father, Miller Williams, was a well-known poet. Most recently, in 2011, she released the album Blessed, which reflected upon her growth as a musician.   

 Although Natural Child coalesced back in 2009, they sound like they’ve been around forever. Almost stereotypically young, the Nashville trio’s influences date to their parents’ record collections and that sense of musical classicism is infused with an appropriate dose of hormonal rage and rebellion.   

The phrase “living legend” gets thrown around a bit too liberally but there’s no better description for Merle Haggard. Far removed from the big-hat twang Pop dominating Country music today, Haggard was among the ’60s artists who helped popularize and transform the genre beyond its regional hillbilly appeal and teeing up its mainstream success. Haggard didn’t play the role of Country bad boy, he lived it.   

Troupe Larry and His Flask (there is no actual Larry but it’s a safe bet that there are several real flasks) was assembled nearly a decade ago by the brothers Marshall. LAHF expanded to a sextet in 2008, picked up acoustic instruments and jumped the tracks toward a Twangcore sound, playing every dicey gig that was offered to them in order to spread their new wild gospel.   

President Obama’s “2012 Election Playlist” was posted recently on Spotify (credited to Obama and his young campaign staffers). There are songs by James Taylor and Springsteen, plus his new karaoke jam “Let’s Stay Together,” but there is a suspiciously large number of Country songs (Dierks Bentley, Darius Rucker, Sugarland, Zac Brown Band).  

When I visited Country Club in the West End last week, it was bustling even though no other visitors were in the art gallery. Christian Strike, its owner, was too busy at his computer to talk. His Iconoclast Editions, an ancillary company headquartered in the West End gallery, had just that day issued a new, limited-run print by Shepard Fairey, the New York-based graphic artist who shot to fame with last year’s “Obama Hope” poster.  

Oklahoma has become the next state to name an official Rock song — hallucinogenic art rockers The Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize?” (also, coincidentally, the official song of Mitsubishi). It was officially bestowed that honor earlier in the week.