His 17th album and the follow-up to 2006's critically acclaimed Milly's Cafe, it's a stunning set on which Eaglesmith's populist storytelling, poignant personal portraits of real life characters and keen aim for expressing the deepest, richest and most basic human emotions find its most eloquent expression yet on 17 new Eaglesmith compositions as well as a number he co-wrote with Lost Highway recording artist and critical favorite Mary Gauthier.

On February 28 to March 1 this year, the fifth annual Fred Eaglesmith Texas Weekend at historic Gruene Hall. Performers on the 2008 Texas Weekend include Jimmy LaFave and Jesse Dayton, with others to be announced, and in previous years such artists as Robert Earl Keen, Jr., Billy Joe Shaver, Tom Russell, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Bruce Robison, Butch Hancock, Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez, Bill Kirchen, Jon Dee Graham and Jason Ringenberg, among others, have played the festival. Eaglesmith's early 2008 tour also finds him making his fifth sailing on the perpetually sold-out Delbert McClinton Sandy Beaches Cruise (which was pivotal in launching the burgeoning trend of musical sea cruises).

Fred Eaglesmith tour dates: