Best Blues and Soul Preservationist

Eddie Stout of Dialtone RecordsWhile Stout is an Austinite, we feel he deserves an award from us anyway. After all, many of the artists he records -- Little Joe Washington, Gloria Edwards and soon Earl Gilliam -- are from here; and no one else is cutting official albums on them. And what albums they are: Washington's volcanic Houston Guitar Blues has attracted favorable national attention and stamped the pint-sized bluesman's ticket to Japan several times, the last of which was as an opening act for the White Stripes. Edwards chips in on the all-female, funk-soul-R&B compilation Texas Soul Sisters, and her rumbling, low-down "Hoochie Mama" is one of the best tunes to come out of Houston in years.