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All Over Creation Tennessean.com (three and a half stars) Plenty of phenomenal musicians live in Nashville. Plenty of pickers and plenty of singers, and many of them are extraordinarily talented. But how many can lay claim to actually altering the course of music? Earl Scruggs did it with his rocket-fueled banjo style; Duane Eddy's twang and rumble made people think differently about the guitar; George Jones' vocals made people hear country music differently. Jason Ringenberg, whose stage outfit hangs in a glassed-in display at the Country Music Hall of Fame, is among that crowd's less-celebrated, but undeniably innovative, members. With his band, the Scorchers, Ringenberg took country music's hum-able melodies and engaging storytelling and blended them with punk-rock aggression and a dose of Dylan-inspired imagery. Country-rock had long been a reality by 1981, when Ringenberg formed the classic Scorchers lineup with Perry Baggs, Warner Hodges and Jeff Johnson, but country punk was something else entirely. ''Jason and the Scorchers may be the only rock 'n' roll band around that can really claim both the Grand Ole Opry and the Sex Pistols as roots,'' wrote The Washington Post's Joe Sasfy in 1984 (well, Sasfy hadn't heard The Gizmos, but that's another story). Nowadays, few rock bands wouldn't claim those roots, and the ''alternative country'' and ''Americana'' movements are peppered with like-minded outfits. The Scorchers may have, as fellow Nashville rocker Webb Wilder says, ''hit the big time and bounced off,'' but their footsteps are well-traced and trodden. Many of today's foot-steppers appear on All Over Creation, Ringenberg's third solo album and his first non-Scorcher effort to fully embrace rock soundscapes. Calling this a solo album is a bit misleading, as Ringenberg is joined by a bevy of collaborators, including Nashvillians Steve Earle, Tommy Womack, Kristi Rose, Fats Kaplin, Todd Snider, Molly Felder, Paul Burch, producer George Bradfute and Music City bands Lambchop and BR549. An influence on most of those folks, Ringenberg nonetheless seems content to meld his vision with theirs: The Womack co-write, Too High to See, comes complete with ringing, decidedly unpunky electric guitars that wouldn't meet the approval of Roy Acuff or Johnny Rotten, and Ringenberg's Camille utilizes poppy, pretty backing vocals from Felder (she normally performs as half of the duo Swan Dive). Elsewhere, the red-haired Scorcher nods to hard-country music with songs written by George Jones (I Dreamed My Baby Came Home, once recorded by Jones and Melba Montgomery and here featuring Rose and Kaplin) and Loretta Lynn (a hillbilly twangin' Don't Come Home a Drinkin' with BR549). The Ringenberg/Earle-written Bible and a Gun, which first appeared on the Scorchers' 1989 Thunder & Fire album, receives a re-write that places the song in the American Civil War. Bible and a Gun's musical setting shifts as well, from Thunder & Fire's amped-up version to a mournful acoustic treatment that features Bradfute's banjo and Kaplin's fiddle. Throughout, Ringenberg sings in a voice that's earnest, rock-ready and endearingly inexact, rather than country-politan smooth. He's never going to be the technical better of Vince Gill, but that's not the point. Do you like Neil Young's work with Nicolette Larson on Comes a Time? (Note to reader: Answer should be ''yes'') It's that sort of deal. Standout tracks include Too High to See, a rockin' Wildhearts collaboration called One Less Heartache, James Dean's Car with Todd Snider and two bookend songs that bring Memphis to the forefront. The opening track, Honky Tonk Maniac From Mars, features Hamell On Trial's stinging guitar and calls to mind Billy Riley's Sun Records classic Flying Saucer Rock 'n' Roll. And All Over Creation's conclusion comes with Last Train to Memphis, a spoken-sung exploration of the busted hopes that are part of a rocker's aging process. ''I'll take the last train to Memphis, because rock it may be dying,'' Ringenberg begins. Later, he references the Scorchers' Broken Whiskey Glass, a song that encapsulates that band's country roots, punk aesthetic and other-wordly transcendence. ''I'll take the last train to Memphis, and look at that big river/ Throw in my Broken Whiskey Glass and not even feel a shiver,'' he claims, though one listen is all it takes to know that the very notion scares the hell out of him.Anyway, that glass isn't his to toss: He's already offered up shards to Womack, Snider and hundreds of others whose music is different because they heard Jason Ringenberg sing and play. Peter Cooper, Staff Writer