You can take the boy out of Fort Worth, Texas. Way out. Stick a guitar in his hands and send him whirling off around the big blue marble for a couple of decades. Put him on stage and in the studio with the likes of Kris Kristofferson, T-Bone Burnett, Delbert McClinton, Elvis Costello, The Wallflowers, Bob Dylan, and Bonnie Raitt. Perch him in front of stadiums full of people or stash him in the back room of some long-gone midnight honky-tonk. Rock him and roll him, and give him something to sing the blues about. And when that's all done, set him to work making a brand-new album that boils all the days and nights and seasons of the heart down into verse and chorus, flights of poetry and flinty truth. Then listen up and realize that, as far as Stephen Bruton is concerned, you can change your zip code, but you can't get Fort Worth out of your soul. That self-evident truth shines through in every note of Nothing But the Truth Stephen's debut album for New West Records. Fans and musicians across the country are aware of Stephen's guitar and producing work. They've been hearing it since 1971, when a songwriter named Kris Kristofferson recruited a fresh-faced guitarist from Cowtown named Bruton. As a youngster, he grew up working in his parents' record store (which still does business in Fort Worth), where he learned some early lessons about musical tolerance. "Fort Worth was the most un-hip place to be on the planet," he recalled of his younger days. "But I had a couple of things going for me. My dad was a great jazz drummer, and he was from the Duke Ellington school of music, which is, there's only two kinds of music, good and bad. "The influences coming out of the record store were enormous. I got to listen to everything from Howlin' Wolf to Liberace to Yascha Heifitz, and George Jones. I would take those records home and play them in that order. But what did it for me was 'Granddaddy's Rockin', a rockabilly song by Mac Curtis, from Fort Worth." Before long, he and a teen-aged T-Bone Burnett were fooling around in Burnett's primitive home studio, and Bruton and Delbert McClinton were honing their chops on dawn-thirty farm-and-ranch programs on the local TV stations. That's how it worked. You played what you could, where you could, and you kept the arbitrary musical boundaries to a minimum. As far as Bruton was concerned, the blues were just country music with a backbeat, the soundtrack for that landscape of the imagination where Hank Williams sat in with Muddy Waters. "I used to go to these bluegrass fiddle conventions on the weekends and I would be the house guitar player," he said. "That usually lasted until about nine or so. Then I would drive across town and go to those black blues bars in Fort Worth. I never thought twice about the contradiction. There was no big deal. And it left you alone to incubate. All of these great Fort Worth players got that way because they had to know how to play everything." "Playing everything" is a tradition which has always defined the musicians that have lived or passed through Fort Worth, from Bob Wills to T-Bone Walker to Delbert McClinton to Ornette Coleman. It is also a characteristic that has defined Bruton's own sound through three solo albums, innumerable recording sessions and a million miles of touring. "I always liked country music and I always liked blues. I dug bluegrass and I liked Howlin' Wolf," said Bruton by way of explanation. "I dunno, that's just what spoke to me." After years on the road and a final two year stint as two-year stint as Bonnie Raitt's lead guitarist, Bruton took the leap into the center spotlight with the release of What It Is in 1993 on the now defunct Dos label. Two years later, he released Right On Time, also for Dos. And now comes Nothing But the Truth, the most adventurous recording of Bruton's wide-ranging career. Produced by Stephen Barber, an eclectic musician and composer whose credits stretch from an Austin rock-fusion band (the Electromagnets, which also featured Eric Johnson) to the Czech Radio Orchestra, Nothing But the Truth digs deeper and ranges wider than any music Bruton has heretofore committed to disc. "Stephen (Barber) helped me stretch lyrically," Bruton said. "The idea was to make a record the way the songs dictate rather than trying to follow record company guidelines or radio politics. If it was predictable, it was out, and if it was not original, it was out." Though the album's songs bear an unmistakably personal stamp, Bruton collaborated with other talented composers, including Al Anderson, Gary Nicholson and Brian O'Dougherty. Jennifer Warnes contributed background vocals, and Sean Hopper, of Huey Lewis and the News, added keyboard touches. Bruton's own Austin-based road band provided the funky backbone and filled in the blanks. In the end, it's Bruton's show; songs such as the unsparing title track, along with "Everything Happens For A Reason" (which Bruton describes as "techno-Jimmy Reed,") the propulsive "Trip, Stumble and Fall," confessional interludes such as "Against My Will" and "King of Everything," and the dreamy, atmospheric "When Love Finds You" demonstrate Brutonís unique boundary-less style. Besides his prowess on his own records and on stage, Bruton has also carved out a career as an increasingly sought-after producer. His credits include the current critically- acclaimed hit by Storyville, Dog Years. In addition, Bruton has been behind the board for albums by Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Hal Ketchum, Alejandro Escovedo, Chris Smithers and others. Bruton's songs have been cut by the likes of Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, Kris Kristofferson, Hal Ketchum, Waylon Jennings, Patty Loveless, The Boneshakers, Lee Roy Parnell, and many more. As songwriter, guitarist, producer and bandleader, Stephen Bruton is proving that his robust mix of rock, country, blues, bone-deep hooks, and Texas soul is right for any time. But right now is the time, and as Stephen Bruton will be the first to tell you, that is Nothing But theTruth.