Highway Prayer: A Tribute to Adam Carroll, due October 28 on Austin-based Eight 30 Records, celebrates a true songwriter's songwriter, a Texas tunesmith who has inspired both younger and older artists for nearly two decades. Carroll simply captures entire lifetimes among stilled snapshots like few other songwriters (“Screen Door,” “Girl with the Dirty Hair”). “I try to find moments that are sublime,” Carroll xplains. “They just last a little bit and then you're back to your regular life and strife, but there are just these perfect little moments.” Evidence: “Black Flag Blues,” “Red Bandana Blues,” “South of Town,” “Smoky Mountain Taxi” and dozens more.

Carroll sketches characters with a novelist’s eye (“Errol's Song”) and a poet's elegance (“Hi Fi Love”) as his vivid vignettes frequently turn personal into universal within seconds (“Highway Prayer”). Consider “Rain.” “I'm feeling like a bird dragging through the storm/Feeling like a scarecrow standing in the corn,” the down and defeated narrator declares. “S