At first listen to singer-songwriter Sturgill Simpson, you can hear the roots of yesteryear's country music outlaws, from Waylon Jennings and Jerry Reed to Merle Haggard (and if this is your first listen, where have you been). After further listening one can hear he is a phenomenon with his own unique flavor of Americana. Simpson is trailblazing his own path to musical success.

Never have I felt more back at home in the cow town, country music-listening, tobacco-chewing, horse-riding, bar-fighting town I grew up in than at the Sturgill Simpson concert at the Ogden Theater in Denver last Friday night. It causes me to wonder: why have country music and psychedelic drug use not met before the visionary Strugill Simpson?