White Ghost Shivers

They may look like just another collection of country bumpkins, but the jovial yokels who make up White Ghost Shivers aren't your average hillbillies. This eight-member crew from Austin, Texas, combines 1920s-style swing with bluegrass and ragtime jazz into a smorgasbord of sound, buzzing with ukuleles, clarinets, kazoos and accordions. At least three members of the band sing, and their vocal styles alternate between smooth, cheery tones and the kind of wavering, raunchy noise you'd expect to hear in backwoods Arkansas. Most important, this group — band members go by names such as Preacher, Smokebreak and Shorty Borgasm — knows how to have fun. In October the Shivers hosted a Halloween Ball down in Texas, which is fitting given that their vintage music often seems to have come from an old black-and-white, ghost-filled cartoon. Happy even when singing about murder, pain and drug addiction, the band makes just about any subject a jolly good time.