Adam Haworth Stephens is broken. Arriving at a coffee shop near the 24th and Mission BART station, the singer and guitarist behind local duo Two Gallants shuffles in from the foggy evening like some spindly patient, wrapped in a long coat with a few wisps of strawlike hair hanging out of his knit cap. He waves a deeply scabbed arm — and a hospital bracelet — in a polite but unenthusiastic hello. Four days ago, a driver didn't stop near Cesar Chavez and Highway 101. Stephens, who was riding his bike to a nearby rehearsal space, was in the way. And tonight, this one-time performer of Southern slave songs and other antique laments, who, along with drummer Tyson Vogel, aimed to sharpen the edge on American roots music, feels tremors of the accident inside his narrow shell. He talks nothing like the drinking, screwing, fighting narrator of many Two Gallants tunes. But this is the Stephens we... More >>>