Chris Knight to perform in Ardmore

After 23 years as a recording artist, singer-songwriter Chris Knight remains boldly empowered to make music that always delivers the unflinching truth. In fact, the man raised in Slaughter s, Kentucky uses a simple, direct barometer to regularly check his muse: "If I can't believe myself, I won't sing the song."

That brutally honest, no-frills philosophy fits his Americana-fueled, backwoods-grown merger offolk, country, and rock. It's been at the backbone of nine studio albums, beginning with 1998's acclaimed self-titled debut and traveling through scorchers such as the one-two punch of 2001's A Pretty Good Guy and 2003's The Jealous Kind, two demostyled discs (2007's The Trailer Tapes and 2009's Trailer II), and the recent, electric guitar-fortified opus, 2019's Almost Daylight.

Knight will hit the sonic highlights of his career in concert May 15 at 8:30p.m. at Two Frogs Grill, 2646 W. Broadway in Ardmore, Okla. To purchase tickets, visit https://t.e2ma.net/click/yupgkg/mlqw/m9w29l.

Because Knight's music h as always sat outside of the mainstream, onstage is where he m akes his fans one show at a time. It is exactly where his searing tales of rural characters, fringe survivors, and tumultuous s mall-town existence find a captivated a udience. A few edgy, raw gems that immediately come to mind are "It Ain't Easy Being Me," "Carla Came Home," "I'm William Callahan," and "Everybody's Lonely Now," the latter two from Almost Daylight.

" I 've written songs about a lot of differ ent things going all the way back to my first record," he says, "and some folks still think 'somebody kills somebody' is all I write about."

What Knig h t writes about is what h e knows. He was raised in mining country, so it's no surprise that h e would earn a degree in agriculture from Western Kentucky Univer sity and then work as a mine r eclamation inspector and then miner's consultant. But eventually his passion for writing songs and playing guitar, both inspired by his musical hero, the late John Prine, led him to chronicle his surroundings in words and music.

"I came from a big family and grew up in the woods six miles from two small towns, so there were a lot of stories," he says. "There were always a lot of ideas to write about."

Those ideas have earned Knight praise from publications such as The New York Times ("the last of a dying breed ... a taciturn loner with an acoustic guitar and a college degree") and USA Today ("a storyt eller in t h e best traditions of M ellencamp and Springst een "), to n ame a few. Like his beloved Prine, whom Knight duets with on Prine's chestnut "Mexican Home ," the cut that closes Almost Daylight, Knight fits comforta bly in Tex s honky­tonks , downt own Nashville venues, and cool Manhattan rock clubs.

It's no wonder that Knight has singleh ande dly scraped a reputation as one of America's most uncompromising and respected singer-songwriters through 23 years and nine studio albums. He's done this minus fanfare and artifice. The native son of Slaughters, Kentucky (population: 238) only sings songs he believes. He also speaks only when he has a potent message.

"If I don't h ave something worth saying, I'm not opening my mouth. I haven't suited everybody, but every time I get a n ew fan it tells me I'm d oing som ething right. I think all my records have set a precedent, if only for me at the very least. I just want people to think t he latest one stands up to everything else I've done."