‘Jackpot!’ Is The Most Compelling Album Of The Year

When I was 12 years old, we lived in the middle of nowhere. We didn’t have cable, the rabbit ears brought in only two television stations, and the mountains around us meant the network station from the nearest sizable town only came in intermittently. Alas, the PBS station was clear as a bell, and somewhere between that station’s dusty documentaries and mind-numbing news reports on textile factory strikes in Bolivia, I had only one respite: the much-beloved music showcase “Austin City Limits.”