AUSTIN, Texas -- One of my favorite things about South By Southwest is how serendipitous it can be. Yes, it's a big, crowded, confusing mess; and yet the darnedest happy accidents still happen. For example, Wednesday afternoon I wandered into the lobby of a downtown hotel, sat down at a table and discovered a compact disc someone had left behind -- and it just happened to be an advance copy of the upcoming album by young Oklahoma troubadour John Fullbright, one of the best new singer/songwriters in the country.

When the great beyond throws a suggestion like that your way, it's best to take heed and follow it. So I did, to Fullbright's Wednesday night set. I've rhapsodized about young Mr. Fullbright before in this space, but I'm here to tell you that he really is that good; getting better, too. His performance, in the sanctuary of a church, was exponentially better than the very impressive show I saw him play in Raleigh last year. He's starting to seem like a rough-edged Lyle Lovett or a smoother James McMurtry, crafting genius-level wordplay that he sings in a sandpaper yowl that grabs you by the throat. "Jericho" and "Me Wanting You" were frightfully powerful.

Demonstrating his range, Fullbright closed with three songs on piano, which I'd never seen him play before. That segment included a house-shaking gospelized version of the old Bessie Smith standard "Ain't Nobody's Business," and it was spectacular. I am also happy to report that Fullbright's album ("From the Ground Up," due out May 8) is likewise excellent.

Other nice finds on Wednesday included the Mastersons, a Brooklyn folk-rock duo who paired lovely high harmonies with nice jingle-jangle guitar catchiness; and Luluc, a folksy duo from Australia whose songs beautifully combine dusky vocals with dreamy guitar chimes. Otherwise, this was the first day and I didn't push too hard after the long travel day to get here. I'll be back with further reports -- including, I hope, a day-two audience with The Boss.

This had already been a pretty amazing weekend for cool and unlikely covers, thanks to Saturday night's Bad Plus/Stravinsky festivities. But it got even better Sunday night, courtesy of the young Oklahoma singer/songwriter John Fullbright. Playing for a small crowd at Raleigh's Berkeley Cafe, he closed with Roy Orbison's epic "Crying" -- a song I never would have guessed Fullbright could pull off, given the operatic falsetto of Orbison's original. But Fullbright's raspy midrange howl worked perfectly; made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, even.

"Crying" was a great capper to a very fine set. Fullbright really is quite amazing, in that he writes about stuff that a 22-year-old really shouldn't be able to evoke (and he seems like such a normal dude offstage). But I think he's one of the best songwriters out there right now. At one point, he played two astonishing songs back to back, "Satan & St. Paul" and "Unlocked Doors," and he mentioned that he'd written both the same night; that was a pretty good night's work, I'd say. "Jericho" was another highlight. I only wish a bigger crowd had turned out, but so it goes.

AUSTIN, Texas – There can definitely be a fiddling-while-Rome-burns feeling to being a part of the entertainment-media complex. That especially goes for this year at South By Southwest. It takes a lot to knock SXSW off the front page of the Austin American-Statesman, but it happened with Thursday’s edition. I guess you could say we’re rocking while Japan melts down.

Nevertheless, SXSW looks to be just as big a madhouse as ever. Travel logistics of getting into town took up most of Wednesday (a furlough day from the paper for me, anyway), which began with my alarm clock ringing at an inhumanly early hour so I could catch a pre-dawn flight. But I did see a few things before fatigue overtook me and I called it an early night.

PS I Love You was pretty fantastic, an unlikely-looking duo from Ontario, Canada – mountain-sized guitarist with a flair for bombs-bursting-in-air fusillades along the lines of Jimi Hendrix, skinny drummer with a flat-top who motored along at a breakneck pace – and they sure did fill up a lot of sonic space for a two-piece. First time I think I’ve ever heard garage-rock in waltz time, too. Also quite fine was John Fullbright, a young singer/songwriter from Oklahoma who shows an incredible sense of wisdom in his writing (he’s in Raleigh at the Berkeley Café on March 27; just sayin’). And Austin old-timer Jon Dee Graham had a band backing him up; that’s a nice bonus of SXSW, you get to see a lot of people who can’t afford to take bands on the road in a group setting. He was excellent, earthy and raw, although by then accumulated weariness was dragging me down from behind.

I’ll be back -- if the world doesn't end first...

Rising singer/songwriter John Fullbright lives about as outback as outback gets -- in Okemah, Okla. And even if it didn't happen to be the birthplace of Woody Guthrie, it would be a pretty good homebase for a troubadourial sort to have.

"It's an hour away from everything, which is great," Fullbright said in a recent interview. "But the bad part is you have to drive an hour to get to anything. Right now, though, I think I'm where I need to be because where I live is who I am. I have some strong ties here and it made me who I am, which shows in the songs. When I learned that third chord, I basically signed a contract that I'd have to travel a lot. I'm perfectly o.k. with driving seven hours to Austin or nine hours to Nashville. And it's also nice to be able to disappear back into the woods, have that little sanctuary that molded my identity."

Chances are good you've never heard of Fullbright before this. But he's an astoundingly great songwriter, and he's playing here in the Triangle Sunday night. For particulars on that, and more from him, click here.