The Bad Popes CD Rounders was recorded, mixed and mastered over a two-and- a-half-year period at Sit-n-Spin studios in Greenville, SC by Matt Morgan. While the music is a unique musical blend of country, rock and western swing, the lyrical content of the tunes on the CD span the Americana landscape, from baseball to cars to lost dogs and beer halls. The title of the CD refers to the game of Rounders from which the great American pastime was derived, as two of the songs on the CD have baseball themes. The song Knuckleball is a mythologized account of Bad Popes’ member Jef Chandler’s grandfather, who was a pitcher in the textile leagues during the 1940’s and 50’s, while the song Sacrifice uses baseball imagery to relate a fictional account of two childhood friends who take different paths in life. In addition to theme of baseball, the CD has several songs on the album that are about the joyous and inspirational nature of music in general, and particularly about how music gets the body moving. The opening track on the album describes a touring band in the midwest who tune into a radio station (hence the radio tower on the back cover of the CD) between Little Rock and Oklahoma City that spins songs that get them ready for the next show. And while She Groove describes a solo dancer who goes out to the local bar to get into a little mischief, the song What You Were Made For (featuring lead vocals by guest performer Robert Goss) shines a spotlight on a man who finds his meaning in the arms of his lover on the dance floor. The song Somewhere Else references an actual bar in Greensboro, NC that was a popular nightspot in the 90’s where girls in swaying dresses and tie-dyes once danced to the music of the Blue Hill Boys. Musically eclectic, Rounders includes a wide swath of styles from the western swing instrumental, 308 (a reference to the car Ferrari 308 GTB), to the tongue-in-cheek blues tune That’s Why I Never Get the Blues, to the reggae-tinged Gonna Wait So Long, to the laid back, 60’s pop/surf sound of the song about the lost dog, Cry Baby. There’s even a brief, almost disco-like instrumental groove section in the song Wound Up, which begins appropriately enough with the words, “Shake it up and let’s see just what comes out.” What comes out in The Bad Popes new CD Rounders is a delightful landscape of Americana images and sounds that are, for the most part upbeat, sometimes wistful and nostalgic, and very entertaining. You will want to listen from the beginning to the end. Then repeat.