First Single From Reckless Kelly's New Album Hits No 1 On Texas Music Chart

Austin, TX. (Top40 Charts/ Yep Roc Records) - The song "Ragged as the Road," from roots rockers Reckless Kelly's new album, BULLETPROOF (Yep Roc Records; June 24, 2008), has climbed to the top of The Texas Music Chart in less than a month of radio airplay.

"Ragged" is a visually evocative song by Willy Braun, the band's principle songwriter and lead vocalist, featuring image after image in lyrics inspired by Braun's reading of the Woody Guthrie autobiography "Bound for Glory" - pierced by David Abeyta's lead guitar and rumbling with Jay Nazz's drums.

"There was a lot of cool train jumping and lonesome-traveler stuff in the book that I loved," says Braun.

"This road I'm on is blacktop and gravel/It's a faded blue line/This road I travel/And it's a well-worn path/It's a cold bar ditch/It's a brakeman sleepin' on a dead man's switch

And I'm a-rollin'/Faster than a locomotive/Tougher than the edge of the Rockies/Hotter than a smokin' gun/Ragged as the road I'm on

This road I'm on has been cracked by the cold/It's been scorched by the sun/And searched by the soul/And it's a working back breakin'/It's a pick ax swingin'/It's steel wheels runnin' on steel rails singin' ...

This road lies ahead/Like life on a brush/It's a virgin canvas/Free from human touch/And it's ours for the taking/Or the leaving behind/It's a ghost from the past with the future to find ..."

No stranger to charts' Top 10s, "Ragged as the Road" is the first song by Reckless Kelly to hit No 1 on The Texas Music Chart. For two weeks at No 3, it made the jump just this week.

First-week sales of BULLETPROOF put it at No 2 on Billboard's Heatseekers chart, No 22 on its Country chart and No 117 on its Top 200 chart.

Reckless Kelly continues its busy schedule, with the Annual Braun Brothers Reunion set for August 7-9 in Challis, Idaho, shows at Sam Houston Race Park in Houston and Billy Bob's Texas in Fort Worth, and a tour in the fall with label-mates Reverend Horton Heat from Florida to New York City.