Prior to I Walked in Them Shoes' appearance in my life, I had not heard of Adam Carroll to the best of my recollection. If the name ever passed my line of sight, it was quickly lost in the thick woods where Earth's ever-growing population of singer-songwriters dwells. I'm glad now to have had a chance to listen to him and to check out some samples of his work on YouTube. Curiously, there he sounds a little less like Townes Van Zandt than he does here.

There are worse sins, obviously, and it's possible, I suppose, that Carroll and Van Zandt took what they drew from older folk music as a consequence of pure coincidence. That seems unlikely, maybe borderline absurd, given the latter's ubiquitous influence in indie circles (not to mention their mutual Texas ties), an influence perhaps even greater now than it was when he died two decades ago. Also Carroll quotes TVZ's "High, Low, and In Between" in one of his own songs on the current disc. And that's one of TVZ's obscurer tunes.

When I heard TVZ's debut album not long after its release in 1968, I saw him as both appealing and sui generis. I also expected never to hear of him again because he was -- not remotely -- a rock musician and that's where the pop mainstream was heading at flash-flood speed back then. It was only in listening to Carroll, however, that I grasp how much TVZ's phrasing owes to Woody Guthrie, not to mention his ramblin' folksinger persona. (No doubt these belated insights are based in the reality that I haven't listened to a TVZ album in years. Reading a biography of him will do that to you.) Carroll has picked up on all of that. One might further cite the wry humor which -- unlike John Prine's -- never rises to laugh-out-loud funny.

At the same time I found that the more I listen to Carroll, the more I like him, which has sort of surprised me. The songs, originals and occasional co-writes, on Walked are uniformly likable. Some of those I encountered on YouTube (presumably recorded on earlier albums; this is his ninth), on the other hand, seem emotionally deeper or more memorably melodic, or both. In any event, from now on, having made his acquaintance, I will keep paying attention.

Along with John Prine, Steve Goodman, who died of leukemia in 1984, emerged from a brief "folk" revival in Chicago in the early 1970s. I put folk in scare quotes because the music was focused entirely on singer-songwriters, most long forgotten and most unattached to any interest in traditional material ("rock guys who can't afford bands," a friend sniffed). Goodman and Prine were conversant in actual folk music, and it influenced their writing, most famously in the former's "City of New Orleans" and Prine's "Paradise." No less than Bill Monroe once mistook the latter for an oldtime mountain ballad.

If a superb stage entertainer, Goodman was only a sporadically compelling composer. I am fond in particular of his not-otherwise-remembered "The Twentieth Century is Almost Over," set to an adapted-from-tradition melody with lyrics co-written by (an uncredited) Prine. Much of Goodman's output, though, is only of ephemeral interest, something you may not have recognized in concert but apparent on his handful of recordings.

Though I knew Goodman casually and saw him in local clubs and later in larger venues, Chicago Farmer (Cody Diekhoff in real life) is known to me only from a couple of albums; I reviewed his Backenforth, IL in this space on 22 December 2012. He is not a farmer, though he grew up on rural terrain; nor does he live in Chicago, though he did for a time as he was putting a career together. But he does take his inspiration from that son of the Windy City, Mr. Goodman.

Quarter Past Tonight, a live recording, was captured in an evidently roomy venue in Peoria, Illinois. Through hard work and innate talent he has achieved regional success amid crowded competition. His fans adore him, if one may judge from the degree of audience exuberance, and he comes across as an amiable sort. Besides the self-penned songs, he takes off on extended shaggy-dog yarns every few cuts over the two discs this release comprises.

Diekhoff is an able craftsman, more consistent in his trade than Goodman was, and a gifted entertainer. His original songs, more often comic than sad, don't -- yet -- boast a "City of New Orleans." He confesses to ambitions, nonetheless, in the amusing "I Need a Hit." Though not likely destined for the pop charts, numbers like "Who on Earth" (a terrific protest song in the classic style) and "Jon Stokes Prison Break Blues" stand out and cause this listener to long for more of the same. I have no doubt Diekhoff has it in him.