Coming pop shows: Hard Working Americans, Ray Benson, Damien Jurado

Todd Snider made his name as an exceptionally sharp-witted songwriter, someone who once might have earned the dreaded "new Dylan" tag. He decided to form the Hard Working Americans, he has said, as a way to unite the singer-songwriter and Americana world with the jam-band world. So he has teamed with Dave Schools of Widespread Panic, Neal Casal of the Chris Robinson Brotherhood, and Duane Trucks and Chad Staehly of Great American Taxi. Snider is the singer and picks the songs. The result, on the band's self-titled debut, is superb versions of numbers by, among others, Randy Newman, Hayes Carll, Gillian Welch, the Bottle Rockets, and Will Kimbrough and Tommy Womack. Snider didn't write any himself, but as a singer he still exudes a shaggy charisma.

- Nick Cristiano

Ray Benson, the 6-foot-7, 10-gallon-hat-wearing leader of long-standing Western Swing exemplars Asleep at the Wheel, is so closely associated with the Lone Star State that it almost amounts to a deep, dark secret that the tall Texas cowboy actually hails from Springfield, Delaware County. Benson comes home this weekend for a show at the Ardmore Music Hall behind A Little Piece, his first solo album away from the Wheel in a decade. Benson's baritone and ringing steel guitar still announce him as a roadhouse country artist, but A Little Piece is more of a brooding singer-songwriter record than fans are accustomed to from the 62-year-old singer. Highlights include a duet with his old buddy Willie Nelson on "It Ain't You" and a tribute to "J.J. Cale," in which Benson stretches out and shows his stuff as a lead guitarist.

- Dan DeLuca

Damien Jurado mines a narrow field, but it's a rich one. His songs explore the casual violence of America. They can be contemporary murder ballads: narrative folk songs of unrepentant confessions, sometimes first-person, sometimes third. Or the violence can be emotional or spiritual: complex, tortured emotions, unrequited, spiteful, or, sometimes, aching so deeply that the love turns painful. Springsteen's Nebraska is ever a touchstone. The arrangements can be spare and acoustic, gently orchestrated, or, occasionally, churning, dark rock-and-roll, often with crackly textures that lend an insular or timeless aura. The new Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son, his 11th album, leans to the spiritual. It's lyrically cryptic and musically diverse. Notwithstanding his appearances on Moby's recent album, everything Jurado does offers a rewarding gravitas, although live - his solo show at Boot & Saddle is sold out - he leavens it with self-deprecating asides.

- Steve Klinge