Here's another throwback courtesy of my friend JNJ!
They call him "The Storyteller." And that he is. Tom T. Hall has been writing and singing songs since the early '60s. Not only did he have a slew of top 10 and #1 hits, he had so many songs thathe wrote made famous by other artists, such as "Harper Velley PTA" by Jeannie C. Riley, "Little Bitty" by Alan Jackson, and many others. Born in Kentucky in 1936, he is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and a noted author.
It was hard to pick just one or two videos, so I had to choose four. And all of them will give you a picture into what is truly important in life, or a least what makes it a lot more fun! And if you want to know what happened at Stubbs in Lubbock one night when Tom T. and Joe Ely got to playing pool, listen to a song called "The Great East Broadway Onion Championship of 1978." Click here to read the story about this song.
This past weekend was a great one for live music for me. I saw one of my favorites, the Dirty River Boys on Friday night and Charlie Shafter Saturday. I have seen both of them more times than I can remember, but for the first time I saw a little band called Crooks, which opened for DRB.
When I heard they were playing I did the usual Spotify stalking beforehand to get a taste of what to expect. I liked what I heard but nothing too groundbreaking. But this is another one of those bands that you just have to see to believe. They started playing while I was still in line (Blue Light was PACKED Friday night) and when I got inside I could barely wiggle my way to the bar, much less see the stage. But I could hear them and I knew I HAD to get to where I could see asap. So my friend Emily and I grabbed a drink and headed to my favorite short girl spot... the church pew on the wall right by the stage.
PACKED.
Obviously I'm a sucker for some long-haired hippie freaks, so if I wasn't already in love with this band by just hearing them, as soon as I saw them I knew I was a fan. I could never put my finger on exactly what kind of music it was, because every song sounded different. And there was a different combination of instruments for every song. The guy on the stage closest to me went from playing guitar to mandolin to banjo to alternating between a trumpet and different kinds of shaker things and back to guitar.
They were just so much fun. I highly suggest seeing their live show if you like country, honkytonk, outlaw, or Texas music or just a good time.
This is country music. It hits on all the classic country themes without dumbing it down or name-dropping or being about trucks. It's country because it's country, not because it has to prove it's credentials. Oh and there's a Jamie Wilson duet... gold.
I had never heard of Chris King until the past few weeks all social media was abuzz about this 1983 album. I got my hands on it last week and haven't been able to shake it since.This one is to 2013 what Jason Eady's AM Country Heaven and K Phillips' American Girls were to 2012. It may be too early to tell, but I'd bet money this one will be in the running for my 2013 favorites list.
Read some other reviews here and (sort of) here and here. Buy it. Listen to it. Love it.
I had to do some major stalking to find any videos of him singing something from this album and finally came across this acoustic version of "Native Son."
I haven't done a throwback in a few weeks, but in light of the Blake Shelton/Ray Price social media war (never thought that could be a "thing") I had to. Nothing reminds me of my Nana and Grandad's house more than Ray Price. Even though she's still mad at him for stealing (ok borrowing to go hunting and never returning) the whistle she used to call her kids home for supper, she's still the biggest Ray Price fan I know.
Maybe I'm a freak, but I definitely still listen to my Grandad's music. Just a few weekends ago I cleaned house to the soundtrack of my childhood in Nana's kitchen. The very vinyl record Ray Price signed himself for my Nana years ago.
As much as I want to like Blake Shelton, jackass comments like this make it really hard. All I can do is thank The Lord for the good music we still have here in Texas and have an appreciation for the stuff that made country music what it is.
I finally made my return to my favorite place on earth, the Blue Light, on Saturday just in time to catch the final night of the Live and Breathing Tour. I had never heard of Shakey Graves or Whiskey Shivers, who both played before Rodney Parker and 50 Peso Reward.
I got to see Whiskey Shivers do sound check and it was just a tease. I couldn't wait to hear more. I think the photo I put on Instagram said they made me want to wear a prairie dress and drink moonshine. I couldn't sit still. I instantly pinned their sound as the love-child of Dirty River Boys and Old Crow Medicine Show. Their website (which I am obsessed with, by the way because I'm a design nerd) hit the nail on the head.
"A freewheelin', trashgrassin', folk tornado, the Whiskey Shivers take
traditional instrumentation, soak it in gasoline and send it into outer
space. Breakneck speeds, killer grooves and impeccable musicianship: it's
enough to make Bill Monroe himself do a double-take as he spins in his grave."
Trashgrass... love it.
I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone or something because I had never seen so many hipsters in Lubbock in my life. I guess they just came out of the woodwork for this show because the floor was packed with true blue fans. The energy of this band was out of this world too. I think my favorite moment was when they finished playing and the crowd demanded another song, so they came out into the middle of the people and played one last song. I had never seen anyone do that at Blue Light before and luckily I was standing up high enough that I could see what was going on.
I don't know how I've missed out on WS for so long, but I hope they are back in Lubbock soon. They've got a new fan in me.
This video creeps me the hell out but it is so creative I had to share it.
This one really captures their live energy. So much fun to watch!
_____________________
Shakey Graves played just before Whiskey Shivers. He's one of those people that can play about 30 instruments at once and sound like a full band... you know, like the Dr. Suess guy...
Anyway, I'd never heard of Shakey Graves either so I just assumed it was a whole band, not one guy. He was very Lincoln Durham/Ryan Bingham sounding with some Charlie Shafter thrown in. I can't even stomp my feet and clap my hands at the same time without looking like I need to ride the little yellow bus to school, so I was incredibly impressed with his ability to play a suitcase drum backwards with both feet while playing guitar and singing. In front of people.(He also had a huge following of hipsters crowding the stage.)
If I could eat dinner with any person in the world right now, it would be Ray Wylie Hubbard. I would love to sit and pick his brain and I have a feeling I would walk away with a whole new outlook on life.
The Texas legend/Wylie Llama/Forgotten Outlaw was on the Late Show with David Letterman last night and his performance was incredible. Of course. Hell, it was enough to make me come out of a nearly month-long blog hibernation due slightly to Christmas break laziness and majorly to my pouting spell that ensued after seeing the 10,437 million posts the last few days on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook by Music Fest attendees in Steamboat making me 50 shades of jealous. I'm back! Thank you, RWH for the inspiration.
"The days that I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations, I have really good days."
(The second I heard that I knew I never wanted to forget it so I jumped up and scribbled it on my bedroom mirror with a marker. My daily affirmation now comes in the form of a Wylie Llama quote.)
