CALEXICO!
A lot of this music will take you to the lands of rattlers and cactus though some is dust, hard work, and little folksy mexicalifornian goodness. [edit: this is some strange amalgam of a few different sentences, not originally intended but saved]
a teaser, from the split album In the Reins with Iron & Wine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wosLpH4eR6U
I would recommend any album they put out.
Also a guy that you will never hear of, or probably listen to, who I had the pleasure of hearing live at Otter Bar (fantasy vacation kayak week, trip report coming). Native of some town with no more than 300 populants near the Klamath National Forest, somewhere close to where the Salmon and Klamath rivers meet: Rex Richardson.
If you trust me enough to take the time to buy his stuff,
http://www.srrc.org/webstore/rex.htm I bought Lift Your Mask and Evermore for $10 each from Rex in person and they are both incredible. He plays all of the instruments on each CD and there is an unpolished feel to his work because its not systematically redone to correct each tiny "mistake," I wish there were some publicly available mp3s or something so I could make this guy a fortune by advertising for him here.