Eddie Stout of Dialtone Records While 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.