Texas Music News
Jordan Mackay contributed to this regular Ranch feature from October, 1997 to August, 1998.
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On the Record: The cover of Lisa Loeb’s new CD, Firecracker (Geffen), features a soft-edged portrait of the artist in pink and off-white. It was conceived by Mark Miller, a popular painter for magazines and advertisements during the 50s and 60s. The painting has a pinup-girl quality to it, with Loeb lying dreamily on what looks like pink carpet in only a long dress shirt, showing a lot of leg and staring out at you from behind those trademark specs. It’s a telling visual introduction to the album: Chances are that if you genuinely like the cover, you’ll be enthused about the satiny songs and bubble-gum production inside. If you like songs about love with lyrics like “This is where I meet my muse / and it feeds me / This is how I buy the sun / and it feeds me,” you will like this album. But if not, steer clear: When the bubble she’s blowing pops on track six, things get mighty sticky.
Denny Freeman is one of the great latter-day Texas blues guitar players. From his position on the stage, he’s seen the big ones come up beside him, play a little, and then go on to bigger things. Freeman himself never really cashed in the way his friends the Vaughans did, but served as an unostentatious and venerated participant in the parade. Perhaps it’s this soulful steadiness that comes through on the exquisitely named A Tone for My Sins (Dallas Blues Society Records), his new album. What makes Freeman great is the way he comes through in his playing—not technically mind-blowing, but rife with feeling and impressively tasteful. This is the kind of playing that only the accumulation of experience and wisdom can produce.
—Jordan Mackay 15-11-97
Long John Hunter, Watermelon Records,The Derailers, Steve Earle
Long time John: Texas Monthly’s Joe Nick Patoski wrote this description of Texas Blues guitar legend Long John Hunter.
“If anyone knows a thing or two about late nights in smoke filled bars, wild men and even wilder women, and how live music can incite a fight/start a romance, it is Long John Hunter. For a significant stretch of time between 1957 and 1970, Hunter ruled over Juarez, Mexico as the King of the Night, holding court in the Lobby Bar, the centerpiece of an entertainment strip that functioned as an all-purpose sin city for a significant percentage of the population of the southwestern United States, particularly residents of El Paso, Texas, just across the Rio Grande.”
Hunter, whose shows in Juarez make for stories that sound like tall tales, never received the large-scale fan recognition a talent like his deserves, but he managed to make fans out of contemporary musicians like Buddy Holly, James Brown, and Billy Gibbons. Finally in 1996 a prominent label, Alligator, released his album, Border Town Legend, and Hunter started to get press, radio play and fan recognition. This year he’s got a new album out called Swinging From the Rafters (also on Alligator) which I have not yet heard, but am eagerly expecting. The title of the new one refers to something that Hunter would do during his shows: hang from the rafters with one arm while continuing to play guitar with his free hand. Juarez is a wild town and Hunter had to do something to hold the attention of the audience there, hence the gymnastics. He’s been on tour in Europe throughout November, but has shows in Houston, Austin, and Fort Worth planned for late December—worthwhile gigs to catch.
Daddy of a deal: Sire Records, a label known for, among other things, putting out the early Madonna records as well as LPs for the Talking Heads and The Ramones, has entered into an agreement with Austin’s Watermelon Records. The deal allows Watermelon—mostly a roots rock and alternative country label—to keep its autonomy, but enlists Sire’s marketing ability for some larger releases. This should help some Texas bands find larger markets more easily and certainly indicates that larger labels have significant interest in what some of the smaller, local labels are able to turn up. The first release under the Sire/Watermelon agreement is the Derailers’ Reverb Deluxe.
On the record: With the above-mentioned record deal and a new CD release, Reverb Deluxe (Sire/Watermelon), local Austin band the Derailers have been enjoying quite a bit of attention from Texas media. Deservedly so: these guys are beloved by everyone who knows them and their music—fundamentally good ol’ honkytonk country that is perfect for smoky bars and dance halls. They’ve got a stylish look—slicked back hair, shiny suits, and big smiles when they play—and their surfeit of character touches the songs on the album. A lot of the songs are familiar to the Austin audiences who’ve seen these guys all over the place, but the lively instrumental “Ellen” never fails to cheer me up. Furthermore, the incredible long, black, and fuzzy eyebrows of singer and guitarist Tony Villanueva add to the fun of a live show more than any other eyebrows in modern music history. Imagine how they sound on CD!
Steve Earle’s El Corazon (Warner Bros/E-squared) is his third release in the last three years. The albums together comprise a kind of trilogy chronicling the stories and emotions of a guy who’s just gotten off a stint in prison and is turning his life around. Of course, El Corazon means “the heart,” clearly the place where the songs on this record originate—and where they hit hardest. Earle is one of those great musicians whose soulfulness emerges even through the coldness of digital technology. The album covers a lot of musical genres from the bluegrass “I Still Carry You Around” to the smoldering, distorted Neil Young-esque “Taneytown” to the mellow, folksy “Christmas in Washington.” The last track is called “Ft. Worth Blues” and is in memory of his mentor and friend Townes Van Zandt. This album is probably the strongest Earle has yet produced and is full of charitable sentiments to warm holiday hearts. Also goes well with a glass of egg nog.
—Jordan Mackay (12/1/97)
Axes to Grind, Crowded Townes, Lone Star in England
Axes to Grind: The Guitar Army was in full march on Thanksgiving Night at Billy Bob’s in Fort Worth. The annual spectacle brings together an extended family of guitarists to take over a club and jam the night away. This year, seasoned professionals Buddy Winnington (John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers) and James Pennybaker (Lee Roy Parnell) participated, as well as guitar-slinging rancher Tom Reynolds, and 17-year-old Drew Webber. These touring pros may only have a few days to spend in town during the holidays but the siren call of a whiny blues solo inevitably calls them to the stage. The Army’s been getting together for over ten years now and the event comes together rather haphazardly—any organizing that’s done is handled by brothers Steven and Sumpter Bruten, who run the 41-year-old Record Town in Fort Worth, and Dave Milsap, who has a guitar school in town. The Guitar Army got its start playing at Fort Worth’s famous club The Hop, but has since moved through J & J’s Blues Club and Horny’s before finally settling at Billy Bob’s. Although a rhythm section is usually assembled for the show—often including a sax, piano, and harmonica—for the most part it’s all about the guitar. Some years there’s another performance at Christmas, but after doing Turkey Day this year, Sumpter isn’t sure if there’ll be one in December or not. Just so you don’t miss it, keep tabs on the entertainment section of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram; they’ll sound the trumpet announcing the Army’s advance.
Crowded Townes: After almost a full year of informal Townes Van Zandt tributes in Texas and elsewhere, Austin City Limits officially got into the act on Sunday, December 7, by gathering a star-studded group of musicians for a “Songwriter’s Special Tribute” to the late folk singer. Sitting in a semi-circle were Cowboy Jack Clement (Van Zandt’s first producer), Lyle Lovett, Rodney Crowell, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Guy Clark, John T. Van Zandt (Townes’ son), Nanci Griffith, Steve Earle, and Peter Rowan. If it sounds like a lot of people, it was. While Official MC Guy Clark conducted the evening as smoothly as possible, passing the spotlight down the line as each musician performed his or her favorite Van Zandt song and related an amusing anecdote from the past, some audience members felt the event was marred by too many participants. For instance, Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris got to sing only one song and it was forty minutes before they got to do it. Still, there were many, many stirring moments: Lovett and Earle singing a duet on “Lungs,” Jack Clement’s version of “The Sake of the Song,” and the whole group finishing up with an energized version of the classic “White Freight Liner.” One critic explained to me that Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris weren’t ever all that close to Townes and the reason they did only one song (the famous “Pancho & Lefty,” which both of them had separately recorded) was because it was the only one they knew. He opined that the people who really knew Townes (and should have been there) were the likes of Butch Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. But at the same time it was touching to see Steve Earle, who was a Van Zandt protégé, mouthing the words to even the songs he wasn’t performing, and to hear Lovett tell the story of buying his first Van Zandt record when he was a teenager.
Lone Star in England: Palestine’s Dale Watson won the British Country Music Association’s award for Best International Artist on an Independent Label. He was the only award-winning American artist who actually attended the ceremony which, he said, was much more fun than many U.S. shows because of its “innocence and enthusiasm.” He was also nominated for “Rising Star” (which fellow Texan LeeAnn Rimes won), Best Album, and International Male Vocalist alongside Alan Jackson, George Strait, and Garth Brooks (“So I didn’t have much of a shot”). Watson says they made Budweiser and Lone Star available to him over there so he could celebrate like a true Texan instead of having to drink swill like Bass or Newcastle.
—Jordan Mackay (12/15/97)
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