Even before he met Carrie Rodriguez, Chip Taylor's life had the authentic ring of fiction about it. He was the younger brother of actor Jon Voight, a Brill Building songwriter who ended up in Nashville writing country songs, and subsequently a professional gambler so accomplished that he was banned from the world's leading casinos. His outrageous luck was in again when he spotted Rodriguez at 2001's South by Southwest festival, and their apparently unlikely partnership is now three albums old.

The duo are joined by Petter Ericsson on bass and guitarist John Platania, best known for his work with Van Morrison and still sounding supple and fluent. The absence of drums allows the music to float, which suits Taylor's performing style. The white-haired, ruddy-faced songwriter treats his live shows like a conversation round a table in his friendly local saloon, interspersing the songs with yarns from his past.

The bulk of the set is plucked from the pair's recent albums, but Chip likes to make sure that his history is appropriately saluted. His unsinkable 1960s war horse Wild Thing is souped-up by Platania's raucous slide guitar and Rodriguez's wailing fiddle, while his ballad Angel of the Morning still retains its wistful charm. But his songwriting mechanisms still seem free of rust, doubtless galvanised by having Rodriguez as a foil. She adds frisky barn-dance rhythms and ricocheting Texas vowels to All the Rain, while Extra is like being whisked down to a cantina on the Tex-Mex border.

Whisky is a recurring theme, with Taylor claiming to be "a 12-year-old Macallan scotch on the third shelf of the bar", though it's the quiet ones they do best of all. Big Moon Shinin' is a reverie of a balmy summer night, and the cautiously optimistic We Come Up Shining is saved for the set closer.