Paul Burch

Paul Burch's new Bloodshot album, East to West, reverses Nashville's musical geography. Like many of the country and rock songwriters and pickers marginalized by Music Row's mega-trends, Burch makes his home east of the Cumberland River, where rents are cheap and the music — at local haunts like the Family Wash or the Radio Café — swings and sways with a grace that west Nashville mostly turns to a stomp. With a Dylan-esque delivery (circa Nashville Skyline), cool melodic glide and rhythms with more shimmy than shake, he evokes Buddy Holly, Brit radio mogul John Peel and sparklers in the dead of winter. Dancing shoes definitely required.