Late one night at the Borgata in Atlantic City, my poker game broke up before I was even for the night. I was in no mood to go home still a loser, so I signed up to get in another game that was going that looked loose and wild with lots of big pots. Despite the late hour, the list for the game was as long as my arm. I gave the floorperson my initials and then went off in search of some other gambling game to whet my appetite while I waited.

Country music's geographic underpinnings are right there in the title: country. But while many a country crooner sings about rural life, small towns and livestock, not a whole lot of them actually grew up in such a setting.  

Jamie Lin Wilson sure did. Raised in tiny Sealy, Texas, she slept atop her horse, learned to play basketball atop her horse and, perhaps most critically, managed to avoid having an uncomfortable conversation with her parents about where babies come from when one of her family's horses topped another horse.