Ryan Bingham - Bread and Water

Ryan Bingham has spent most of his life on the road, first on the rough-and-tumble rodeo circuit, then moving from town to town on the equally volatile roadhouse musical circuit. Those travels have given him plenty of material to draw from – and plenty of reason to stop for a moment to dig in his heels and take a stand.

That’s exactly what the Texas-bred troubadour does on his second Lost Highway album, Roadhouse Sun, a hardscrabble collection that’s at once unblinkingly personal and unapologetically political – the latter a new and bracingly vivid addition to Bingham’s palette. The expanded consciousness bursts to the surface of several cuts on Roadhouse Sun – nowhere more movingly than on “Dylan’s Hard Rain,” a stark look into the darker corners of an America in which the storm its namesake sang of has blown through.

“With all that’s happened politically and economically in the last couple of years, I felt like there was a lot to say,” explains the 28-year-old singer-songwriter. “As a young person, I felt like it was time to get involved, to write something that wasn’t just about Saturday nights in bars. And as far as Dylan? Things that were happening back then are still happening. Things keep repeating themselves.”

Roadhouse Sun showcases Bingham’s flair for cutting a listener to the quick with slashing, blues-inflected guitar leads that’d do Lone Star forebears like Lightnin’ Hopkins proud – his approach on the steely “Endless Ways” – and then offering a balm of bucolic melody, like that of the soaring “Bluebird.” He and his road-tested band stretch out most intriguingly, however, on the epic “Change Is,” seven minutes of meditative, hypnotic riffing that builds to a near-psychedelic crescendo as Bingham spins his tale of empowerment and responsibility.

“In some ways, I’d gotten burned out on the straight-ahead country scene,” he says. “Because I wear a cowboy hat, people assume we’re just this honky-tonk band, and we’re not. I want to be seen as a versatile artist who draws on a lot of different things and tells a lot of different stories.”

They’re tough stories, to be sure, but Bingham has come by them honestly. He’s lived on his own since his mid-teens, when circumstances and substance abuse tore apart his nuclear family. Rather than get sucked into the system that’s destroyed so many adolescents, he took a road far less traveled – riding bulls on the highly-competitive rodeo circuit around the Midwest and southwest. It was on these long hauls that Bingham was able to get in touch with his musical muse, taking things public one night at a bar in Stephenville, Texas. “A bunch of friends asked me to play a couple songs for them. I went out and got my guitar and the owner said ‘you oughta come on in and play now and then,’” he recalls. “So I did -- I started playing every Wednesday night and people started showing up to hear me play -- it was pretty much an accident, I guess.” Read more about Ryan Bingham

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Junior Brown - Surf Medley

Junior Brown via last.fm

Junior Brown is a noted wizard on the guitar, combining country style picking, surf instrumentals, and good old rock 'n roll into his own unique style.


Brown was born Kirksville, Indiana.  His music career began in the 1960s, and he worked through that decade and the next singing and playing pedal steel and guitar for groups such as The Last Mile Ramblers, Dusty Drapes and the Dusters and Asleep at the Wheel while developing his astonishing guitar skills. By the mid-1980s he was teaching guitar at the Hank Thompson School of Country Music at Rogers State University, in Claremore, Oklahoma.


In 1985 Junior invented a double-necked guitar, with some assistance from Michael Stevens. Junior called the instrument his "guit-steel". When performing, Junior plays the guitar by standing behind it, while it rests on a small podium/music stand. The top neck on the guit-steel is a traditional 6-string guitar, while the lower neck is a full-size lap steel guitar for slide playing. Brown has two guit-steels for recording and live work.


The original instrument, dubbed "Old Yeller", has as its standard 6-string guitar portion the neck and pickups from Brown's previous stage guitar, a Fender Bullet. The second guit-steel, named "Big Red", has a neck laser-copied from the Bullet neck, but in addition to electric guitar pickups, both the standard and lapsteel necks use an identical Sho-Bud lapsteel pickup. There is a pocket in the upper bout of the guitar to hold the slide bar when it is not in use.

Brown quickly became a local success in Austin, Texas, as the house band at the Continental Club. His debut album was 1993's 12 Shades of Brown; it was followed by Guit with It. Later that year (1995), Brown released Semi Crazy, and followed it with 1997's Long Walk Back.

Robert Earl Keen - The Man Behind the Drums

"We left New York City, with nuthin' but a song,
she'll be coming' 'round the mountain when she comes.
We wound up in Woodstock, at an old time jamboree,
came to see the man behind the drums.
 
Levon digs the doghouse, playing in The Band,
when he locks in to that backbeat it ain't hard to understand.
Get your body movin', celebrate your soul,
Levon digs the doghouse, that's sho-nuff rock and roll.

Son of a plain dirt farmer, from southeast Arkansas,
he was born in a bare ramblin' shoe.
Up and down the highway, and all around the world,
laying down the rhythm and the blues.

We were hangin' from the rafters, singing every song,
that big barn band was hot as it could be.
Up there in the spotlight, the man behind the drums,
was takin' all the load off for you and me.

Yea, Levon digs the doghouse, that's sho-nuff rock and roll."




The "Levon" mentioned in the lyrics is, of course, Levon Helm of The Band, singer of such classics as The Weight, and The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.

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Charlie Robison - Yellow Blues

Charlie Robison via last

Charlie Robison (born Charles Fitzgerald Robison on September 1, 1964 in Houston, Texas) is an American singer/songwriter, who was raised in Bandera, Texas. His brother is singer/songwriter Bruce Robison.


Buy Charlie Robison Albums
MySpace

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Jon Dee Graham - It's Not As Bad As It Looks

Jon Dee Graham is a musician, guitarist and songwriter from Austin, Texas. He was born February 28, 1959. Graham was named the Austin Musician of the Year during theSouth by Southwest (SXSW) music conference in 2006. He was inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 2000, again in 2008 as a member of The Skunks, and again in 2009 as a member of the True Believers.

The Skunks' lineup featured Jesse Sublett on bass and vocals and Bill Blackmon on drums. Founded in 1978, the band invited Graham to be their new guitarist (replacing Eddie Munoz, who departed to join The Plimsouls) in 1979. Graham's guitar can be heard on the band's live CD, “Live: Earthquake Shake, released in 2000. [1]

The True Believers, which included Alejandro Escovedo and his brother, Javier Escovedo, are widely considered by critics to be seminal figures in the fusion of literary songwriting and punk rock, a sound often referred to as alt.country.

Jon Dee Graham went on to play with John Doe, Exene Cervenka, James McMurtry, Eliza Gilkyson, Kelly Willis, John Hiatt, Michelle Shocked, Patty Griffin, Calvin Russell, andLone Justice.

His music has been featured in soundtracks such as Ladder 49 and Veronica Mars. In 1992, Patty Smyth covered Graham's song, "One Moment to Another" on her album, Patty Smyth.

To date, Graham has released six studio albums: Escape from Monster Island (1997, Freedom Records); Summerland (1999, New West Records); Hooray for the Moon (2002, New West Records); The Great Battle (2004, New West Records) and Full (2006, Freedom Records). His record, "The Great Battle," was produced by Charlie Sexton.

His sixth studio album, "It's Not As Bad As It Looks" was released October, 2009 on Freedom Records.

Graham's music generally explores the struggles with being a grown up and the battles that adults fight as they try and raise their children, maintain marriages and jobs, and grapple with the quick passage of time. Despite the heaviness of such themes, Graham's music is also infused with a strong sense of the joys of life and the need to remain optimistic.

Graham's second child, Willie, suffers from a chronic, rare childhood disease called Legg-Perthes. In 2005, the Austin music community banded together in an effort to raise money for Willie's treatment. The resulting benefit concert at Austin's Continental Club became a CD/DVD release called "Big Sweet Life: The Songs of Jon Dee Graham." Musicians like Alejandro Escovedo, Bob Schneider, David Garza, Ray Wylie Hubbard,Ian McLagan, and Steve Poltz all contributed by covering Graham's tunes. An additional benefit concert, held the same night at the Saxon Pub, featured performances by Roky Erickson and the Skunks. Graham commuted the short distance between clubs to participate in both shows.

Over the years, Graham has been backed by Jim Keltner, Rafael Gayol, Mark Andes, Michael Hardwick, and Andrew Duplantis, who went on to play in Son Volt with Jay Farrar.

In early 2006, production began on a feature-length documentary on Graham and his music. Entitled, Jon Dee Graham: Swept Away, it was released on DVD on May 20, 2008. The film was directed by a fan of Graham's, Mark Finkelpearl, who happens to be a documentary television professional with a background on the staffs of the Discovery Channel and National Geographic Television.

In August 2008, Graham underwent emergency surgery after being injured in a one-car accident.[2]

Almost every Wednesday night, fans can see Graham live at the Continental Club on Austin's South Congress Avenue where he traditionally plays a set at 10pm, just before James McMurtry goes on at midnight.

Jon Dee Graham Website

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Reverend Horton Heat - Baddest of the Bad

The Reverend Horton Heat is the stage name of Jim Heath, the bandleader of an American psychobilly trio from Dallas, Texas. Heath is a singer and songwriter, born in 1959 in Corpus Christi, Texas).


The group originally formed in 1985, playing its first gigs in Dallas's Deep Ellum neighborhood. Its current members are Jim "Reverend Horton" Heath on guitar and lead vocals, Jimbo Wallace on the upright bass, and Paul Simmons on drums. Through relentless touring and a manic stage show, they have established themselves as one of the most popular underground acts in America.
Their sound is self-described as "country-fed punkabilly." Their music is a mixture of country, punk, big band, swing, and rockabilly, all played loud and energetically with lyrics that are often very humorous, and they have achieved success within the genre and even in mainstream America, many of their songs being featured in video games and commercials.


Reverend Horton Heat

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Guy Clark - The Guitar

Guy Clark via last.fm

Guy Clark: Master Songwrite:


"Songwriting legend Guy Clark doesn't merely compose songs; he projects images and characters with the kind of hands-on care and respect of a literary master. Clark works slowly and with strict attention to detail, and has produced an impressive collection of timeless gems, leaving very little waste behind. The emotional level of his work, as well as the admiration and esteem of his peers, consistently transcends sales figures and musical genres. Using everyday language to construct extraordinary songs for more than 35 years, Clark continues to be the type of songwriter whom young artists study and seasoned writers, as well discriminating listeners, revere.


Born in Monahans, Texas, on November 6, 1941, Clark grew up in a home where the gift of a pocketknife was a rite of passage and poetry was read aloud. At age 16 he moved to Rockport, on the Texas Gulf Coast. Instructed by his father's law partner, he learned to play on a $12 Mexican guitar and the first songs he learned were mostly in Spanish.


Moving to Houston, Clark began his career during the "folk scare" of the 1960s. Fascinated by Texas bluesTownes Van Zandt and Jerry Jeff Walker. "It was pretty 'Bob Dylan' in the beginning," Clark said. "Nobody was really writing." Eventually, Clark would draw on these roots to firebrand his own fiddle-friendly and bluesy folk music, see it embraced as country and emerge as a songwriting icon for connoisseurs of the art..."
 

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Rodney Crowell - Earthbound

Rodney Crowell via last.fm

Rodney Crowell


Rodney Crowell (born August 7, 1950) is a Grammy Award-winning musician, known primarily for his work as a singer and songwriter in country music.


He is considered to be part of both the alternative country and the mainstream country music camps. He is a contemporary of Steve Earle and, like Earle, was also influenced by the songwriting greats Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt. Crowell played guitar and sang for three years in Emmylou Harris' "Hot Band".


Crowell was born August 7, 1950 in Houston, Texas to James Walter Crowell and Addie Cauzette Willoughby. He had come from a musical family, with one grandfather being a church choir leader and the other a bluegrass banjo player. His grandmother played guitar and his father sang semi-professionally at bars and Honky tonks. At age 11, he starting playing drums in his father's band. In his teen years, he played in various garage rock bands in Houston performing hits of the day mixed with a few country numbers.


After producing Rosanne Cash's highly successful Rhythm & Romance, Crowell signed to Columbia Records in 1986. His first album for that label Street Language was co-produced with Booker T. Jones and featured a blend of Soul and country music. The album, however, failed to produce any chart activity.


Although best known as a songwriter and alternative country artist, Crowell enjoyed mainstream popularity during the late 1980s and early 1990s. His critically acclaimed album, 1988's Diamonds & Dirt, produced five consecutive No. 1 hits during a 17-month span in 1988 and 1989: "It's Such a Small World" (a duet with Cash), "I Couldn't Leave You If I Tried," "She's Crazy for Leaving," "After All This Time" and "Above and Beyond" (a cover of Buck Owens' 1962 hit). His follow-up album, 1989's Keys to the Highway, produced two top 5 hits in 1990, which were "Many a Long and Lonesome Highway" and "If Looks Could Kill."


As Crowell's popularity in hit-radio country music faded, he continued his prolific songwriting. After 1992's Life Is Messy, he left Columbia Records and signed to MCA Records where he released two more albums.

Lightnin' Hopkins - Mojo Hand

Lightnin' Hopkins


Sam "Lightnin’" Hopkins (March 15, 1912 — January 30, 1982 was a country blues guitarist, from Houston, Texas, United States. Born in Centerville, Texas, Hopkins' childhood was immersed in the sounds of the blues and he developed a deeper appreciation at the age of 8 when he met Blind Lemon Jefferson at a church picnic in Buffalo, Texas. That day, Hopkins felt the blues was "in him" and went on to learn from his older (somewhat distant) cousin, country blues singer Alger "Texas" Alexander. Hopkins began accompanying Blind Lemon Jefferson on guitar in informal church gatherings. Jefferson supposedly never let anyone play with him except for young Hopkins, who learned much from and was influenced greatly by Blind Lemon Jefferson thanks to these gatherings. In the mid 1930s, Hopkins was sent to Houston County Prison Farm for an unknown offense. In the late 1930s Hopkins moved to Houston with Alexander in an unsuccessful attempt to break into the music scene there. By the early 1940s he was back in Centerville working as a farm hand.


Hopkins took a second shot at Houston in 1946. While singing on Dowling St. in Houston's Third Ward (which would become his home base) he was discovered by Lola Anne Cullum from the Los Angeles based record label, Aladdin Records. She convinced Hopkins to travel to L.A. where he accompanied pianist Wilson Smith. The duo recorded twelve tracks in their first sessions in 1946. An Aladdin Records executive decided the pair needed more dynamism in their names and dubbed Hopkins "Lightnin'" and Wilson "Thunder".


Hopkins recorded more sides for Aladdin in 1947 but soon grew homesick. He returned to Houston and began recording for the Gold Star Records label. During the late 40s and 1950s Hopkins rarely performed outside Texas. However, he recorded prolifically. Occasionally traveling to the Mid-West and Eastern United States for recording sessions and concert appearances. It has been estimated that he recorded between 800 and 1000 songs during his career. He performed regularly at clubs in and around Houston, particularly in Dowling St. where he had first been discovered. He recorded his hits "T-Model Blues" and "Tim Moore's Farm" at SugarHill Recording Studios in Houston. By the mid to late 1950s his prodigious output of quality recordings had gained him a following among African Americans and blues music aficionados.


In 1959 Hopkins was contacted by folklorist Mack McCormick who hoped to bring him to the attention of the broader musical audience which was caught up in the folk revival. McCormack presented Hopkins to integrated audiences first in Houston and then in California. Hopkins debuted at Carnegie Hall on October 14, 1960 appearing alongside Joan Baez and Pete Seeger performing the spiritual Oh, Mary Don’t You Weep. In 1960, he signed to Tradition Records. Solid recordings followed including his masterpiece song "Mojo Hand" in 1960.


By the early 1960s Lightnin' Hopkins reputation as one of the most compelling blues performers was cemented. He had finally earned the success and recognition which were overdue. In 1968, Hopkins recorded the album Free Form Patterns backed by the rhythm section of psychedelic rock band the 13th Floor Elevators. Through the 1960s and into the 1970s Hopkins released one or sometimes two albums a year and toured, playing at major folk festivals and at folk clubs and on college campuses in the U.S. and internationally. He traveled widely in the United States, and overcame his fear of flying to join the 1964 American Folk Blues Festival; visit Germany and the Netherlands 13 years later; and play a six-city tour of Japan in 1978.


Filmmaker Les Blank captured the Texas troubadour's informal lifestyle most vividly in his acclaimed 1967 documentary, The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins.


Houston's poet-in-residence for 35 years, Hopkins recorded more albums than any other bluesman.


Hopkins died of cancer in Houston in 1982.

Asleep at the Wheel - Way Down Texas Way

Asleep at the Wheel carries on the tradition of western swing.



Since forming in 1970 in Paw Paw, W. Va., Asleep at the Wheel has been the leader in keeping western swing – a danceable amalgam of country, jazz, pop, and blues – alive. Lead by deep-voiced mainstay Ray Benson, the local juggernaut has shifted lineups considerably over the years, and more than 80 musicians have passed through it. In 1971, Benson, joined by steel guitarist Lucky Oceans, rhythm guitarist Leroy Preston, and vocalist Chris O'Connell, moved to San Francisco, where the band added pianist Floyd Domino and strengthened an alliance with touring partners Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen. 1973 brought their debut, Comin’ Right at Ya, on United Artists. The following year, at the suggestion of Willie Nelson, the Wheel relocated to Austin. Switching to Epic Records resulted in a self-titled release and some action on the country charts with a remake of Louis Jordan's "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie.” Another label jump, this time to Capitol, produced 1975's Texas Gold, a country Top 10 album and their only Top 10 hit on the country singles charts, "The Letter That Johnny Walker Read." In 1980, Chris O’Connell and Lucky Oceans left the band, and after some financial difficulties in the early part of the decade, Benson and friends signed to Dot with little success. Returning to Epic, 1987’s 10 brought them back to the Top 20 of the country album charts and, with “House of Blue Lights,” the singles charts. In 1990, a major personnel shift brought steel guitarist/Dobroist Cindy Cashdollar onboard. 1993’s A Tribute to the Music of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys and 1999’s Ride With Bobbrought western swing to a new audience and national acclaim and recognition to the band. The latter, which featured fiddler Jason Roberts who is now an important cog in the Wheel along with vocalist Elizabeth McQueen, was adapted for the stage and has been played to audiences nationwide. – Jim Caligiuri

James McMurtry - Levelland

Image via Wikipedia

James L. McMurtry, along with his Austin-based band, James McMurtry & The Heartless Bastards, is a self-described “rock & roots” guitarist and singer-songwriter, drawing on elements of alt-country, folk and old-fashioned texas rock.

The son of novelist Larry McMurtry, James was born in Fort Worth, Texas in 1962, and grew up in Virginia. James McMurtry’s seventh studio album, Childish Things, was released on Compadre Records in the fall of 2005. As writer L.E.Brady notes, “The album includes McMurtry’s statement on American decline - We Can’t Make It Here - his most unabashedly political number yet.”

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Los #3 Dinners - Chingadera

The lowdown on Los #3 Dinners


Los #3 Dinners are a mainstay of San Antonio’s diverse music scene. The story begins in 1979 with the band's first incarnation, Los #2 Dinners. After years of pounding the SA club scene, The Dinners called it quits in order to pursue personal interests in the early 1990s. Shortly after, band leader “Lenny” Eric Friedland, guitarist Frank Karpienski, bassist Bart Nichols, and blues musician/childhood friend Joe Shortt formed the short-lived blues band "The Pralines." As word of the Pralines spread around town, a renewed interest in the old #2 Dinners material emerged. In 1995, The Prailines changed their name to Los #3 Dinners after the addition of drummer Jake Perales. Thus, Los #3 Dinners was born!


The sound of Los Number #3 Dinners is a high-energy mix of guitar-driven garage rock, South Texas soul, surf-instrumental, and the blues. This ain’t no Austin band...todo S.A. vato to the max. These guys are busy playing the soundtrack to your weekend.

Townes Van Zandt - Marie

Townes Van Zandt via last.fm

This video is from a 1993 performance in San Antonio. Poet , musician, and madman Townes Van Zandt sings of the hopeless and the homeless. Walk the streets of Austin or any American city, and live Van Zandt's harrowing vision.

"I stood in line and left my name
took about six hours or so
Well, the man just grinned like it was all a game
said they'd let me know
I put in my time till the Pocono line
shut down two years ago
I was staying at the mission till I met Marie
now I can't stay there no more


Fella 'cross town said he's lookin' for a man
to move some old cars around
maybe me and Marie could find a burned-out
van and do a little settlin' down
Aw, but I'm just dreamin', I ain't got no ride
and the junkyard's a pretty good ways
that job's about a half week old besides
it'd be gone now anyway


Unemployment said I got no more checks
and they showed me to the hall
my brother died in Georgia some time ago
I got no one left to call
Summer wasn't bad below the bridge
a little short on food that's all
Now I gotta get Marie some kind of coat
we're headed down into fall


I used to play the mouth harp pretty good
hustled up a little dough
but I got drunk and I woke up rolled
a couple of months ago
they got my harp and they got my dollar
them low life so and so's
harps cost money and I ain't got it
it's my own fault I suppose


The Pocono's down but the Chesapeak's runnin'
two freights everyday
if it was just me I'd be headed south
but Marie can't catch no train
She's got some pain and she thinks it's a baby,
says we gotta wait and see
in my heart I know it's a little boy
hope he don't end up like me


Well, the man's still grinnin' says he lost my file
I gotta stand in line again
I want to kill him but I just say no
I had enough of that line my friend
I head back to the bridge, its getting kinda cold
I'm feelin' too low down to lie
I guess I'll just tell Marie the truth
hope she don't break down and cry


Marie she didn't wake up this morning
she didn't even try
she just rolled over and went to heaven
my little boy safe inside
I laid them in the sun where somebody'd find them
caught a Chesapeak on the fly
Marie will know I'm headed south
so's to meet me by and by


Marie will know I'm headed south
so to meet me by and by."

Tish Hinojosa - The Westside of Town

Image via Wikipedia

Tish Hinojosa


Leticia ("Tish") Hinojosa (born December 6, 1955 San Antonio, Texas) is a folksinger recording in both Spanish and English. Hinojosa was the youngest of 13 children. Hinojosa's parents were Mexican immigrants, and she soaked up their music as well as the area's country sounds and popular rock and roll. She started playing guitar as a teenager, singing folk and pop songs in local clubs. She also sang commercial jingles for a Spanish-language radio station and recorded a few Latin pop songs for a local label. In 1979, she moved to Taos, NM, and eventually landed a job singing backup with Michael Martin Murphey. In 1983, she relocated to Nashville and tried to make it as a singer and/or songwriter, but found that she didn't fit the mold of what record companies wanted. In 1985, she moved back to Taos, and in 1988, she moved to Austin, TX. In 2007 she married Andreas Sedlmair and the couple maintains homes in his native Germany and Austin.


Her 1992 album Culture Swing, released by Rounder Records, won the NAIRD Indie Folk Album of the Year.

The Texas Tornados

Texas Tornados via last.fm

Texas Tornados


Texas Tornados was a Tejano band and its music was a fusion of rock, country and various Mexican styles. The initial combination of these musicians happened almost by chance at a concert performance of a mutual acquaintance. After Freddy Fender, Flaco Jiménez, Kevin West, Augie Meyers, Jorge "Pac-MAN" Diaz, and Doug Sahm performed in front of a San Francisco audience, they all knew the genuine bond they felt in their music could probably be taken to another level. After they initially performed as the Tex-Mex Revue, they took the title Texas Tornados, after Sahm's song and album of that name.


Another account of the group's birth says they formed when record company executives looking to cash in on regional music sales approached Sahm and Meyers around 1990, and they brought in longtime friends and collaborators Fender and Jiménez. Sahm had released albums under the name Texas Tornados as early as the 1970s, some featuring Fender or Meyers. Jiménez and Meyers played on Sahm's Atlantic Records debut in 1971. As Fender once said "You've heard of New Kids on the Block?, we're the Old Guys in the Street".


Individually, this quartet has had major success. San Benito-native Freddy Fender was a cross-over success story around the world with hits like "Before the Next Teardrop Falls" and "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights".


Flaco Jiménez has played with acts ranging from the Rolling Stones to Dwight Yoakam. He also is known as the "Father of Conjunto Music" (Flaco plays the Conjunto accordion).


Augie Meyers has shared the stage with the likes of The Allman Brothers Band and Bob Dylan. He's also a member of the Texas Music Hall of Fame. Doug Sahm and Augie Meyers were both members of the 1960s pop-rock band the Sir Douglas Quintet, with hits such as "She's About a Mover" and "Mendocino" to their credit. Sahm, Meyers and Jiménez are from the San Antonio area.


The band's 1990 debut was recorded in both English and Spanish versions. The Texas Tornados were asked to perform all over the world at places like the Presidential Inauguration of Bill Clinton, the Montreaux Jazz Festival, as well as regular appearances at Farm Aid and the Houston Livestock and Rodeo Show.


Among their other albums is Live From The Limo, this was the last album to be recorded that featured the complete lineup, as Sahm died in 1999, the year of its release. Fender, who had health problems in later years, died in 2006. Their 2005 Live from Austin album was a recording of a 1990 performance on the TV series Austin City Limits.


People sometimes refer to their lyrics as Spanglish because of the mixture of English and Spanish in the same song, in addition to pronouncing the Spanish lyrics in an American accent, which is evident in their hit, "(Hey Baby) Que Paso". An example is the lyric: "Don't you know I love you / and my corazón is real?", where the word corazón (Spanish for "heart") is improperly pronounced /ˌkɔrəˈsoʊn/, with an obvious American accent, instead of [koɾaˈson]. The band's self-titled debut album was offered in Spanish and English-language versions.


R.I.P. Doug Sahm and Freddy Fender

Two Tons Of Steel Crash Into Landa Park

Texas favorites Two Tons of Steel give a decidedly western swing twist to the Ramones punk classic Sedated. (2009 KNBT Crossroads Party):



Two Tons of Steel


Texas band Two Tons of Steel might be described as equal parts Elvis Presley and Elvis Costello, with a liberal dose of Buddy Holly and a dollop of The Ramones. It’s a one-of-a-kind sound that bandleader and frontman Kevin Geil likes to call “countrybilly.”


It’s also a sound that’s boosted the group to renown as the face of Texas music: with its live performance at historical Gruene Hall; of Two Tons of Steel in the internationally released IMAX film “Texas: The Big Picture”; its performance of King of a One Horse Town in the roots-country documentary that screens continuously at Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame; its swing tune as part of Lone Star beer’s ongoing regional radio campaign; and by becoming Texas music ambassadors to ecstatic fans in Cuba and at sold-out shows throughout Europe. Two Tons of Steel continues as an institution at Texas’ famed Gruene Hall, where its annual Two Ton Tuesdays summer series draws 12,000 fans, and as a popular act at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry. For eight years, it’s been voted Best Country Band by the San Antonio Current, its hometown weekly.


Lead singer Geil handles acoustic guitar, Dennis Fallon plays electric guitar, Ric Ramirez plucks the upright bass, Chris Dodds provides drums and percussion, and Texas Steel Guitar Hall of Famer Denny Mathis adds more steel muscle.


Two Tons of Steel Website