Goree Carter: “Rock Awhile” The title describes the music on this obscure 1949 Houston blues tune; in fact, some critics consider it one of the first rock and roll records ever. Sorry, we’re unable to find an account with that username and password. The song illustrated his hardships and his encyclopedic musical mind. The Thirteenth Floor Elevators “You’re Gonna Miss Me”. Deep in the Heart Of Texas 6. Cliff says: August 17, 2017 at 9:39 pm . Scott Joplin: “Maple Leaf Rag” Ragtime was the harmonic antecedent to jazz, and its greatest composer was Bowie City’s Joplin. You'll receive your first newsletter soon! Here are 16 songs about Texas that will touch your soul. Doubtless to some, but also, like a good low-budget action flick, “Mind Playin Tricks on Me” is so over the top that it quickly turns surreal. A quarter century and fifty-odd hits into his career, he penned this 1965 tune that professes an unabashed love as big as his home state. As the most famous of these, “Stormy Monday Blues” settles into a resigned helplessness that’s hard to let go of. Reply. He sings of all of his ex-girlfriends and why they're his exes. Frizzell had already paid his musical and civic dues (he did a bit of hard time) when a studio owner heard him in a Texas club, leading to his signing with Columbia. Sir Douglas Quintet: “At the Crossroads” Doug Sahm pulled all his influences into his music, and he pours them out on this memorable 1969 ballad, known for the lines “But you just can’t live in Texas/If you don’t have lots of soul.”. But there was no denying the song Holly and his band, the Crickets, rolled out from Norman Petty’s Clovis, New Mexico, studio onto the national stage. Buddy Holly and the Crickets “That’ll Be the Day”. If you consider that everything from blues to conjunto to jazz to R&B to rock and roll has been made here, the meaning of that phrase can be as expansive as the state itself. All this elevated the quartet style from spiritual entertainment to sanctified “church-wrecking.”. Where religious singing had prized precise technique over emotion, this record rides on composer Rebert Harris’s thrilling, trilling leads and bluesy moans and slurs, as well as on his unprecedented “delayed time.” The pure tonalities of the background singers fills out the a cappella sound, and the song itself has a contemporary lyric. Though the drummer couldn’t find the beat with a GPS, the Farfisa-fueled band churns out a boogie rhythm on this 1965 Tex-Mex rock classic, which Dallas’s Domingo Samudio, the self-proclaimed Sam the Sham, transforms into magic. Dixie (the Texas boy's version which goes "shall this boasting, mad, invader, trample Texas and degrade her? With its 1939 debut, the Trinity group ushered in modern gospel-quartet vocalizing. Now Lefty wears his “skin like iron,” and Pancho . . Though she at first tended to elevate everything into a screech, by 1971, when she recorded “McGee” for her album Pearl, she had a newfound maturity on display, constantly lifting lines (“Windshield wipers slappin’ time”) and reigning them back in (“Holdin’ Bobby’s hand in mine”). Sippie Wallace: “Woman Be Wise” Houston’s Wallace started out early enough to have Louis Armstrong as a sideman, but this spunky 1966 recording, made after she was lured from retirement, endeared her to the emerging folk scene and made her a hero to a new generation. Both had a taste for speed, but it was Walker’s relaxed, after-hours sides that best suited his smooth vocal style. Ella Mae Morse: “Cow Cow Boogie” Fronting the Freddie Slack Orchestra, this saucy seventeen-year-old stylist from Mansfield and Paris had a sense of rhythm that verged on shocking for someone working in the white mainstream in 1942. Roy Head: “Treat Her Right” Early (1965) proof that a white boy from Three Rivers and San Marcos could do the blue-eyed soul bit as well as the Righteous Brothers or any of those Muscle Shoals guys. A master of improvisational, stream-of-consciousness blues, Houston’s Third Ward street poet was the bridge between acoustic and electric, rural and urban. Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys “New San Antonio Rose”. Texans don’t say “wiretapping”… they would call it “the eyes of Texas are upon you.” 13. Alejandro Escovedo: “Paradise” A condemned man awaits the gallows as the evocative first song from Austinite Escovedo’s 1992 solo debut opens. It's barely December but with Thanksgiving over and done with, the moratorium on Christmas songs is officially over. Freddy Fender “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights”. Fuller yoked Buddy Holly’s Tex-Mex grooves to a rockabilly attack, an eclectic guitar flash, and vocal harmonies that owed much to the Beatles and early folk rock; he wrapped it in contemporary production and engineering that was all presence. “You say you’re gonna leave,” Holly taunts. Nightcaps: “Wine Wine Wine” Texas’s white-boy blues scene begins here, in 1959, with a Dallas quintet that had a convincingly loose, loping feel on this jivey blues-and-rock standard. The songs about Texas towns: Abilene: Waylon Jennings, "Abilene" There could be a separate list of Waylon songs about places in Texas.This one is pretty straightforward: Abilene is a town he likes. The stories you want, in one weekly newsletter. Where all the bravado came from is anybody’s guess. LET’S BACK UP FOR A SECOND. In the end, he poured so much of himself into his songs that there was almost nothing left but a shell. 118 Famous Texas Sayings and Phrases Along With Their Meanings. The phrase “Six Flags over Texas” refers to the six countries that ruled over Texas territory. It was 1966; the Grateful Dead had yet to release an album. It’s also the smokiest, scorchingest bar-band R&B instrumental ever. But this was never about scientific method; it was about music. But all my exes live in Texas. But Johnson brings it down to a near whisper for “Dark.” It’s as though he can’t bear to sing the words. He Hoped Sheltering in Place Would Save His Marriage. And Jacquet’s still at it. His personal vocal style is finally beginning to emerge on this 1957 track, while his uptown band is inventing the soul-blues sound. His melodic wizardry is on display in all his pieces, but 1899’s “Maple Leaf Rag” was his, and ragtime’s, most enduring. I Live in the Middle of Nowhere. He was such a maverick that he still doesn’t get proper credit. But it’s one of his most imaginative vocals, and since the Rolling Stones revived it in 1964, it’s become a standard, a self-fulfilling prophesy that has stood the test of time as well as anything he did. Butch Hancock: “If You Were a Bluebird” With so many sharp and incisive songs under his belt, the prolific Hancock sports an embarrassment of riches. well, “the dust that Pancho bit down south/Ended up in Lefty’s mouth.” Such literate tragedy could only come from a haunted heart, and Fort Worth’s Van Zandt was an outrageously talented songwriter with a body of work gripped by melancholy. Funny, rocking, and undeniable. 4. It has been certified 6× Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry for UK sales of 1,974,890 copies. Jacquet was only nineteen when he first entered a recording studio with Lionel Hampton’s 1942 band and played the solo that would define his more than sixty years on the stage. The greatest voice in country (and maybe all of popular music) was all but written off by 1980, as the Saratoga-born singer’s tumultuous personal life had almost consumed his stellar two-decade career. His best-known tune (released in 1972) tells of an ill-fated meeting. Enter your email below to send a password reset email. Successful as a songwriter but stymied as an artist, Willie fled Music City for his native Texas in 1971, intent on making his own music on Red Headed Stranger, which was so out of step with prevailing sounds that his label first dismissed it as a bunch of demos it didn’t want to release. ZZ Top: “La Grange” Before Burt Reynolds ever heard of it, the Chicken Ranch was immortalized in 1973 by Houston’s ZZ Top, who took (yes, took) a John Lee Hooker riff and set it to their sleaze-boogie motif. God, what a scream. King? Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys “New San Antonio Rose”. Joe Tex knew. Ray Sharpe: “Linda Lu” Usually pegged as black rockabilly, the Fort Worth singer-guitarist’s 1959 hit might be the sexiest thing to come out of a Texas roadhouse. Conjunto Bernal: “Mi Unico Camino” With their expert arrangements of staccato, twin chromatic accordions, and upbeat bajo sexto, Kingsville’s Bernal brothers brought the conjunto sound into the modern world in the late fifties. Welcome to Texas, Elon Musk. The remaining sixty are alphabetized, a decision that eliminated the prolonged—and fruitless—debate over whether, say, George Strait’s “Amarillo by Morning” should be number 86 or number 87. It perfectly captured Gatemouth’s fiery eclecticism. Jack Teagarden: “Basin Street Blues” A double threat as both a superb vocalist and trombonist, Vernon’s Teagarden somehow missed the limelight. Santiago Jimenez Sr.: “Viva Seguin” The original Flaco (“Skinny One”) had a softer, smoother style than his conjunto-pioneer peers, and this unhurried 1942 polka is one of the genre’s hardy perennials, recorded by everyone from solo accordionistas to orquestas. And Alvino Rey may have been the first of many to record this sing-along, clap-along love song to the state, but Autry’s version, from the 1942 movie Heart of the Rio Grande, is the best known because, simply, it’s the best. He wasn’t the first, but he played with an invention no one had imagined before (and some would say since). In ‘The Infinite Race,’ Indigenous Athletes Tell Their Own Stories, Taco News Roundup: New Churro Shops Come to Austin and San Antonio. May 6, 2015 - Of the estimated 3500 songs written about Texas and Texas places, here are our 10 favorites. Hey! The music was upbeat and happy, while Tommy Duncan’s vocals mourned a loss he just couldn’t shake (“Moon in all your splendor/Known only to my heart/Call back my rose/Rose of San Antone”). He died. “Day” kicked off what would prove to be an enduring body of work. Get more stories delivered right to your email. The King of Western Swing’s all-time best-seller is also a great example of his particular genius: If a more conventional big band had cut this, it would have been considered a pop record. And the reason is that sound. In which four tuff and tender guys from El Paso provide a bridge from path-breaking fifties rock and roll to mind-blowing sixties rock. 1) “Texas, Our Texas” by William J. Marsh, 2) “Deep In The Heart Of Texas” by Perry Como with Ted Weems and His Orchestra, 3) “Luckenbach, Texas” by Waylon Jennings, 4) “The Yellow Rose of Texas” by Various Artists including Elvis Presley and Mitch Miller, 9) “San Antonio Rose” by Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys, 10) “Deep Elem Blues” by The Shelton Brothers, 11) “Miles and Miles of Texas” by Asleep at the Wheel. So get riled up if you have to, and have fun. Jerry Jeff Walker and Gary P. Nunn: “London Homesick Blues” Walker helped make his band mate Nunn’s 1973 tune (with Nunn on vocals) part of the vernacular before Austin City Limits dubbed it its theme song. Jeannie C. Riley: “Harper Valley PTA” The Anson country singer’s sexy but righteous unmasking of small-town double standards (“Then you have the nerve to tell me you think that as a mother I’m not fit/Well, this is just a little Peyton Place and you’re all Harper Valley hypocrites”) was one of the biggest phenomena of the sixties. With a snake of a bass line, syncopated guitar, and Bell’s immortal intro, this 1968 gem begins. We sure did. “Now make it mellow!” he shouts, as a horn coda takes everything down—for two bars. Rather than limiting ourselves to songs that are about Texas, we defined a Texas song as any song performed by a Texas artist. “We just thought of a new dance called the Tighten Up.” And then, just to be sure you got it, “This is the music we tighten up with.” Bell yells entrance cues like a sideline coach. The Perryville native turned Nashville upside down in 1956 when he introduced the Texas dance hall sound to conventional country, replacing the standard 2-4 beat, double-stop fiddle, and vocal choruses with a 4-4 featuring drums and heavy bass, single-string fiddle, and high harmony over his own swelling lead vocals, which verged on the croon he’d later adapt. Bob Wills -- "San Antonio Rose/New San Antonio Rose" 5. “Family Affair” was their last great single, from 1971. In some ways, the stomping up-tempo shuffle that first made him a star is atypical Bland; after all, slower songs gave the quintessential sexy-blues smoothie more room to “work” a lyric. While San Antonio was incubating a stunningly diverse and accomplished rock and R&B underground in the late fifties and early sixties, orquesta still ruled. Their responses, combined with our own lists, brought us to some consensus, but we still had more than four hundred songs. With his quirky guitar and his dry, bemused vocals, he could—and did—write and sing about nearly anything; he’s also perhaps the most recorded bluesman ever (he cut this song twice, in ’60 and ’69). Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton: “Hound Dog” Houston-based R&B belter Thornton growled the words to “Hound Dog” over swamp-funk backing. A product of the San Antonio and Houston scenes, Tillman cast aside country’s usual euphemisms to write and sing about extramarital love and sex with no apologies, no moralizing, no excuses. Let me know in the comments! Blind Willie Johnson “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground”. See more ideas about texas, only in texas, texas humor. Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs “Wooly Bully”. The Houston native thus earned the title the Lark of the Border. Compared with that, love songs are easy. Lydia Mendoza: “Mal Hombre” For her 1934 solo recording debut (“Cold-Hearted Man”), the mother of Tex-Mex took the words she’d memorized off a gum wrapper in Monterrey eight years earlier. Yet in his entire free-ranging repertoire, there’s something about this melodic slice of Louisiana black magic, most of its lines adapted from other songs, that remains irresistibly pure Lightnin’. No argument here. Plenty of exceptional musicians hail from the great state of Texas, from the classic country artists like Willie Nelson to the modern country singers such as George Strait. He mastered his stunning bottleneck guitar technique (he used a pocket knife) on the streets, and his voluminous croak rang over the din of the crowd. He’s respectful of the black original but eager to show what he can do too; unlike so many of his peers who got themselves lost in the blues, he never forgot he was a white interpreter. Bells of Joy: “Let’s Talk About Jesus” Lead singer A. C. Littlefield’s creamy, countrified tenor made this Austin quartet’s 1951 debut that rarest of gospel beasts: the secular crossover. Before you pore over our picks for the best Texas songs, you’ll probably want to know about the methodology behind the list, starting with how we define a Texas song. Roger Miller: “King of the Road” Though Miller had written hits for others, the Fort Worth singer was known for novelties like “Dang Me” until this finger-popping 1965 smash about a “man of means by no means” came along. Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson -- "Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)" 4. We report on vital issues from politics to education and are the indispensable authority on the Texas scene, covering everything from music to cultural events with insightful recommendations. Did it stand the test of time? Love Texas? Dierks Bentley's fun little song about partying and having fun is great for a spring break playlist. They inspired everyone from their homeboys Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan to ZZ Top, over in Houston. Like Walker, Gatemouth’s talent transcends the blues. Though this was released in 1927, two years before he moved to Kerrville hoping that benign weather would cure his tuberculosis, Rodgers’s million-seller (10,000 qualified as a major hit at the time) suggests that he may not have been a native Texan, but he got here as soon as he could; besides, he’d spent much time in the state during his hoboing days. Stevie Ray Vaughan: “Texas Flood” With one dirty, dramatic slow blues track that gave him all the space he needed to rip it up, the Austin guitar hero of the eighties anoints himself. Two Trailblazing Country Musicians From San Benito Led Parallel Lives Decades Apart, Texas Monthly Recommends: ‘A Night With Janis Joplin’, The Unflappable Country Star Charley Pride Dies at 86, Why Netflix’s Selena Series Ultimately Misses Its Mark, Being Texan: Collings Guitars Are Worth Every Penny, ‘One by Willie,’ Episode 8: Wesley Schultz on ‘Pretty Paper’, On ‘Good News,’ Megan Thee Stallion Owns Her Well-Deserved Fame—and Gets Down to Brass Tacks, ‘One by Willie,’ Episode 7: Lee Ann Womack on ‘Three Days’, ‘One by Willie,’ Episode 6: Sonny Throckmorton on ‘What a Way to Live’, ‘One by Willie,’ Episode 5: Wynonna Judd on ‘Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain’, Texas Wedding Photographers Have Seen Some $#!+. It’s all setup; we’re two minutes in before we realize the real reason the song’s subject finally got over the woman who walked out on him. Recorded, home with the armadillo, in Luckenbach. Willie Nelson: “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground” In lesser hands, his 1979 song might seem irredeemably hokey, but Nelson pulls off this slow-dance heartbreaker with his usual aplomb. Hey! On it goes, never deviating from the same cheesy riff, for two minutes and thirty seconds of joyous abandon. A pre-rap rapper whose soothing voice had just enough rough edges, he got his singular countrified sound by recording in Nashville with salt-and-pepper bands. The Greatest Hits is a compilation album by rock band Texas, released on 23 October 2000.The album peaked at number one in the UK, becoming the band's third album to do so. Swing bandleaders routinely “appropriated” tunes from their sidemen. The 100 Best Texas Songs. Ernest Tubb: “Walkin’ the Floor Over You” You’ll not find a simpler sound than that unveiled on the Texas Troubadour’s first massive hit, from 1941. A teen make-out classic, “Talk to Me” finally took the San Antonio sound way up the pop charts in 1963. His slyly humorous, down-home philosophizing (“Show me a man that’s got a good woman/I’ll show you a man that goes to work hummin’”) was tinged with the knowledge that to err is human, and celebrations like this snappy, rhythmically shifting 1967 affirmation of the do-right couple gave soul a whole new dimension. Search, discover and share your favorite Texas GIFs. If you are an existing subscriber and haven't set up an account, please register for an online account. I love sharing smiles, good food, and great conversation :). His 1929 “Basin Street Blues” remains definitive, which, for such an oft-recorded tune, says a lot. Jacquet’s surefire cockiness kicked “Flying Home” to an entirely new level. When Wills added lyrics and cut the new version nearly two years later, he kept nothing but the original, traditional melody; the song was all reeds and brass, like any other big-band swing record of the day. The father of Texas blues recorded almost one hundred songs throughout the twenties, but it’s this simple and earnest plea that defines his remarkable and tragically short life. Jimmy Dee and the Offbeats: “Henrietta” Reportedly from San Antonio, Dee (real name: De Fore) released this unforgettable chugging swamp rocker in 1957, along with a couple of other singles, before vanishing into the obscurity from which he came. So the two of us whittled them down by asking ourselves a few more questions: Was the song inherently Texan, either in style or in subject matter? Latin Breed: “El Tejano Enamorado” With their sophisticated, sax-heavy arrangements and jubilant vocal style, this ten-piece San Antonio band’s polka-ranchera fusions helped usher in the modern tejano era in the early seventies. George Jones “He Stopped Loving Her Today”. The so-called “hard” beats are actually better described as “deliberate,” and rapper Scarface’s keyboardlike guitar writhes through his stream-of-consciousness imagery, which is unforgivingly brutal. His savvy, utterly natural fusion of rural string band, blues, and pop ushered in the era of modern country music, and soulful “blue yodels” became his staple. The Creole singer-guitarist from Beaumont took this top ten at a time (1962) when girl-group music, almost exclusively a northern form, ruled. Nothing else in Texas rap compares to this 1991 B-movie vision of urban paranoia from Houston’s Fifth Ward. A huge hit, 22 years before Mitch Miller got his mitts on it. Flaco Jimenez “Ay Te Dejo en San Antonio”. That’s also fine with us. Here’s two Jimenezes in one. He even included the names of the real-life lawmen who had put him there. See more ideas about Songs, Texas, Texas music. No wonder that though nearly everything else in this style now seems a period piece, “Wasted Days” still sounds both urgent and eternal. Esteban “Steve” Jordan: “Kranke” Jordan earned the title Jimi Hendrix of the Accordion for the way he, like Hendrix, redefined his instrument. Instead It Led to Divorce. 25 of the Best Country Songs About Texas 1. Leave them blank to get signed up. This dead-on parody lays waste to a certain subset (and their mamas—a master stroke, that). Club owner Don Robey was so knocked out by the Orange-raised string-bender that he launched his seminal Peacock label just to record him. Psychedelic music and, not coincidentally, LSD were just starting to take hold when these acid-rock pioneers made the scene. The Best Things in Texas, 2021: H-E-B’s Charles Butt. Nashville would drown this in strings; Willie lets his guitar do the talking. It features his best band ever (John Hart on tenor sax, Buck Senegal on guitar, Cleveland Chenier on rubboard) augmented by a pair of white rockers; guest Elvin Bishop plays some slide guitar that’s at once lustrous and dirty behind Clifton’s backwoods vocals and accordion. And though he spent his entire career up north, his radio-friendly tenor and his mellow phrasing retained just enough Texas grit to make him a seldom-credited influence on Floyd Tillman and other honky-tonk trailblazers. https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-100-best-texas-songs/. Newbury was born in Houston, Texas, on May 19, 1940, to Mamie Ellen (née Taylor) and Milton Newbury.As a teenager, Newbury sang tenor in a moderately successful vocal group called The Embers. The rat-tat-tat of the rhythm section is as unnerving as the overdubbed gunshots at the beginning of the song; there’s been very little else in white pop music with such propulsive thrust. texas 4713 GIFs. Don Santiago Jimenez, one of the San Antonio architects of pre-war conjunto, wrote and originally recorded this betrayed lover’s blue and bitter ranchera in 1937. We Swear. Then you’ve got those maniacal dit-dit-dit-dits from organ jockey Augie Meyers; he claims he owned the first Vox in the nation, which supposedly provided the English vibe, but the way he used it mainly served to make a direct connection with Tex-Mex accordion. Sort: Relevant Newest # viceland # texas # gaycation # the lone star state # theres nothing like texas # texas # miss america 2017 # miss america 2016 # the simpsons # gun # texas # guns # rich texan # texas # austin # texas # texas Finally, there’s Doug Sahm’s great, and always underappreciated, rock vocals—hard and fast, with a Little Richard-like intensity, but also still melodic—and his delightfully cockeyed lyrics and title. Tubb didn’t have much of a voice, but his ebullient charm made up for it. Though Bland was Memphis-bred, he was based in Houston for most of his tenure with Duke Records. The iconic Lubbock songwriter’s heartfelt and poetic 1981 love letter should be kept in a vault. To generate the list, we contacted twenty outside experts—writers, editors, and deejays with an array of tastes—and asked them to send their thirty favorites per our guidelines. They would have been funny and worthwhile to share, if the writer would not have had not put in the four letter words. Don't have an account? For its intensity and stark sadness, his 1927 recording of the eighteenth-century crucifixion hymn stands like a beacon among the thirty recordings he left behind. Tillman’s characteristic jazzy electric-guitar chording and his slip-sliding, behind-the-beat vocals had already helped make him one of the fathers of honky-tonk country when this song came along in 1949 to seal the deal. By our father's proud example, Southern soil they shall not trample...To arms, to arms, in Texas.." Bet y'all didn't know that existed, didja? Harry Choates: “Jole Blon” The so-called Louisiana national anthem belongs here because the doomed Choates may have been born in the Bayou State, but he lived in Texas his entire career, and this is the agonized version that put the traditional song on the commercial map. Choosing the best was a subjective process, and sometimes we went on gut feeling. 27. I Still Got COVID. You already know the biggies -- "Deep in the Heart of Texas," "All My Ex's Live in Texas," "Yellow Rose of Texas" -- but there scads of lesser-known gems, too. It was the title song of an album that won Jimenez a Grammy and solidified his standing as the lone conjunto accordionist known to the non-Tex-Mex audience. And while novelty songs like "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" and "All I Want For Christmas Are My Two Front Teeth" are sure to be played hundreds of times, there's no shortage of truly funny Christmas songs that wont' be seeing much air time. Nor a more pleasing one, nor one easier to identify with. The bloody song cycle about murder, revenge, and redemption in the Old West was tempered by this sweetly sentimental single. Clifford Scott: “Honky Tonk” Though released under bandleader Bill Doggett’s name, this is San Antonio composer-tenor saxman Scott’s record all the way. Subscribe or link your existing subscription. Amos Milburn: “Chicken Shack Boogie” Houston powerhouse pianist Milburn made irresistible good-time music, celebrating drinking, carousing, and carrying on. At his solo’s peak, the Houston-raised saxophonist blows a brash single note twelve times in a row, then he does it again. Sample Funny Lyrics He stuck that needle down deep in my gum And he started drillin' before I was numb Some beach E.T. Dwight Yoakam didn’t invent honky-tonk music, nor did Buck Owens or even Merle Haggard. El Paso -- "Marty Robbins" 2. Freddie King: “Hide Away” Nothing showcased the Texas-Chicago blues connection like Gilmer guitarist Freddie King’s 1961 “Hide Away,” which liberally borrowed from other sources and, in so doing, created a new blues standard. 5. But don’t call it the blues. “Only the Lonely” was the first of many memorable hits for the Vernon singer, and it perfectly encapsulated his style; blending elements of rock, doo-wop, and rockabilly to a lush vocal and string pop arrangement, which builds Bolero-like to the inevitable big finish. Just as it’s difficult to overstate Walker’s importance, it’s impossible to conceive of the modern blues without his unforgettable couplet: “They call it stormy Monday/But Tuesday’s just as bad.”. He had a singular style that included a booming voice and an expert use of quills, which accentuated his fast, rhythmic high-string strumming. Okay, so what do we mean by “song”? Gilmore and his band of Lubbock unknowns, the Flatlanders (Joe Ely and Butch Hancock), played spare acoustic backing, including a musical saw, that emphasized his Texas warble. “You know it’s a lie ’cause/That’ll be the day when I die.” Musically, with pounding drums and precision studio guitar and vocal work, its innovations weren’t confined to it being a rock and roll recording. The knowing title song of his 1978 sophomore album confirms just how comfortable he was with one foot in the country bar, one in the rock roadhouse, and, er, one more in the coffeehouse. Get our weekly newsletter, filled with good reads, news analysis—and updates on special events. The Big Bopper: “Chantilly Lace” Jape Richardson, a Beaumont-raised deejay, was also a songwriter (“White Lightnin’,” “Runnin’ Bear”) but is remembered for his hilarious 1958 “Chantilly Lace,” which lasciviously declared to the world, “Oh, baby, that’s what I like.”. Just ask Ray Charles. Buddy Holly and the Crickets “That’ll Be the Day”. We’re aware that these uncertain times are limiting many aspects of life. The hard-swinging 1954 recording of “Okie Dokie Stomp” takes off like a bullet and never slows down. Sir Douglas Quintet “She’s About a Mover”. Was it a big enough hit to become a part of the vernacular? Charles Brown: “Driftin’ Blues” With an urbane sophistication unmatched in the blues world, Brown’s near-perfect “Driftin’ Blues,” from 1946, launched a long career for the Texas City pianist-vocalist and was a big influence on those to follow. , shouting hardships and his encyclopedic musical mind Houston native thus earned the title the Lark of vernacular! Texas will Touch your soul drown this in strings ; Willie lets his guitar the... Anyone who was born here, even if he or she left the state line you 're ready dance... On it goes, never deviating from the same cheesy riff, for such an amazing and legacy... 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