Anything Goes

Randy Houser’s debut introduced a man who never does anything halfway. When he rips into a rough-edged rocker such as the workingman’s howl “Boots On,” he puts his all into it. Taking a long, hard look at the state of the world with “Back to God,” Houser throws every ounce of soul into an impassioned, power-ballad plea for piety. And when he lays out his mission statement over greasy, bluesy riffs on the steamy “My Kinda Country” (“Little bit of Waylon, whole lot of Motown”), the agenda’s tough to deny.

Like many professional Nashville songwriters, Randy Houser -- a co-author of Trace Adkins' career-defining smash "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" -- was given a crack at a career as a performer based on the strength of his songs and, like many other songsmiths turned singers, he has to sing other people's tunes on his 2008 debut, Anything Goes.