Lincoln Durham - Living This Hard

Lincoln Durham

BIO:
Born in Whitney, Texas. raised in Itasca. started playing fiddle at the age of four. that’s right, four years old. By eight, Lincoln Durham was performing in fiddle contests all over Arkansas and Oklahoma. In fact, at ten he won the Texas State Youth Fiddle Championship. come twelve, the young man hooked up a residency with the house band at the Oceola Opry. Then, through his high school years, Lincoln decided to pick up the strat. he started a three-piece band playing who else but Jimi and Stevie Ray. Took a spell, though, and put the guitar on the backburner for a while to pursue art and design. but, a couple years ago, he grabbed a resonator, a slide and an old Gibson j45. He impressed Ray Wylie Hubbard so much with his greasy, nasty sound that Ray signed on to produce his record.

Clarence Gatemouth Brown - Guitar in my Hand

Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown (April 18, 1924 — September 10, 2005) was a Louisiana and Texan American musician. He is best known for his work as a blues musician, but embraced other styles of music, having "spent his career fighting purism by synthesizing old blues, country, jazz, Cajun music and R&B styles" (New York Times obituary).

He was an acclaimed multi-instrumentalist, who played an array of musical instruments such as guitar, fiddle, mandolin, viola as well as harmonica and drums. He won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album in 1982 for his album, Alright Again!

Born in Vinton, Louisiana, Brown was raised in Orange, Texas. His professional musical career began in 1945, playing drums in San Antonio, Texas. Tagged with the "Gatemouth" handle by a high school instructor who accused Brown of having a "voice like a gate," Brown has used it to his advantage throughout his illustrious career. His career was boosted while attending a 1947 concert by T-Bone Walker in Don Robey's Bronze Peacock Houston nightclub. When Walker became ill, Brown took up his guitar and played "Gatemouth Boogie," to the delight of the audience, and made a name for himself, becoming famous after impressing the audience.

In 1949 Robey founded Peacock Records in order to showcase Brown's virtuoso guitar work. Brown's "Mary Is Fine"/"My Time Is Expensive" was a hit for Peacock in 1949. A string of Peacock releases in the 1950s were less successful commercially, but were nonetheless pioneering musically. Particularly notable is the blistering 1954 instrumental "Okie Dokie Stomp", in which Brown solos continuously over a punchy horn section (other instrumentals from this period include "Boogie Uproar" and "Gate Walks to Board"). As for his gutsy violin playing, Robey allowed him to record "Just Before Dawn" as his final Peacock release in 1959.

In the 1980s, a series of releases on Rounder Records and Alligator Records revitalized his U.S. career, and he toured extensively and internationally, usually playing between 250 and 300 shows a year. He won aGrammy in 1982 for the album Alright Again! and was nominated for five more. He was also awarded eight W. C. Handy Awards and the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Heroes Award. In 1997 he was honored by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, and in 1999 was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.

In his last few years, he maintained a full touring schedule, including Australia, New Zealand, and countries with political conflicts in Central America, Africa, and the former Soviet Union. "People can't come to me, so I go to them," he explained.

In September 2004, Brown was diagnosed with lung cancer. Already suffering from emphysema and heart disease, he and his doctors decided to forgo treatment. His home in Slidell, Louisiana was destroyed byHurricane Katrina in 2005, and he was evacuated to his childhood home town of Orange, Texas, where he died on September 10 at the apartment of a niece, at the age of 81. Brown is buried in the Hollywood Cemetery in Orange, Texas. However, flooding caused by hurricane Ike in September, 2008, damaged his grave.

His final album was Timeless, released in late 2004.

Gatemouth
 

Cindy Cashdollar and Carolyn Wonderland - Turtle Bayou Turnaround

Cindy Cashdollar
Carolyn Wonderland

Carolyn Wonderland is a blues singer, songwriter and musician from Houston, Texas. Born on Nov 9th 1972 she dropped out of Houston's Langham Creek High School to pursue her music. In 1999 she moved to Austin, Texas. In 2001, Wonderland lost her apartment lease when her landlord fell ill, and she decided to live out of her van for a while (two years) because she was on the road so much, spending over 300 days a year on the road performing.

Carolyn's instrumental abilities include acoustic and electric guitar, electric mandolin, slide guitar, trumpet and piano. Although she is primarily a Blues artist she likes to incorporate elements of Country, Swing, Zydeco, Surf, Gospel, Soul, and on some nights maybe even a little Cumbia into her musical mix.

In February 2008, she released "Miss Understood" on the Bismeaux Productions label. The title song from Miss Understood has remained in the Top 50 on the Roots Music Report charts ever since the album's initial release[3]. Her fans include Bob Dylan and Ray Benson, founder of Asleep at the Wheel. Benson produced Miss Understood, and has been a song writing collaborator with her for many years. Wonderland credits several other blues and Texas musicians as influences on her music. One notable is Austin singer/songwriterTerri Hendrix. Wonderland covered two Hendrix songs, ('I Found the Lions' and 'Throw My Love'), on her Miss Understood CD.

Wonderland has been involved in a large variety CD-album recordings. Several were self produced on independent labels. She was the lead singer fronting the band Imperial Monkeys. Wonderland released "Bloodless Revolution"(2008), for South by Southwest-2008. Today it is only available in an MP-3 download format. Carolyn is the primary singer on the Jerry Lightfoot's Band of Wonder "Texistentialism" CD with Jerry and Vince Welnick (Grateful Dead, Tubes.)[6] Wonderland was a founding member of the Loose Affiliation of Saints and Sinners (with Papa Mali, Eldridge Goins, Guy Forsyth, and others), with several of her songs being featured on their "Sessions from the Hotel San Jose Rm. 50" CD. Carolyn was also the lead guitarist in the all-girl, southern rock band Sis DeVille, and a founding member of the Austin Volunteer Orchestra.

Wonderland's virtuosity has earned her an appearance on Austin City Limits. Carolyn has also had her music used on NBC’s “Homicide” and Fox’s “Time of Your Life.” She was a headlining artist at the annual Rochester International Jazz Festival summer 2009 at the Eastman Theatre and New York.

Carolyn Wonderland jamming at Antone's in Austin (2008).

Carolyn Wonderland has won the following awards:

Best Female Vocalist - 2009 Austin Music Awards

Best Blues Band - 2009 Austin Music Awards

Best Female Vocalist - 2000 Houston Press Music Awards

Gold Award-Flagstaff International Film Festival- Music Video Awards -Alan Ames &Assoc.' "Party on Houston" featured artist "Carolyn Wonderland"


Cindy Cashdollar (born May 25, 1956) is a steel guitar and Dobro artist. She grew up in Woodstock, New York where she perfected her skills by playing with bluegrass musician John Herald, blues musician Paul Butterfield, and Levon Helm and Rick Danko of The Band.

Cashdollar received five Grammy awards while playing for eight years with Asleep at the Wheel and has also backed such noted performers as Bob Dylan, Leon Redbone and more recently Ryan Adams as a credited member of his band The Cardinals. She authored a series of instructional videos on her instruments and released her first solo album, Slide Show, in 2004. Cashdollar currently makes guest appearances on Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion, conducts workshops nationwide and plays in a number of musical venues around Austin, Texas.

During the fall of 2004 she was a member of Ryan Adams's band The Cardinals playing the steel guitar live on stage. She also went into the studio with this band and played on the album Cold Roses, although she didn't tour the album with Ryan Adams & The Cardinals and was replaced in 2005 by Jon Graboff.

In 2006, she toured with Van Morrison promoting his country and western album, Pay the Devil. She also appeared with him at theAustin City Limits Music Festival, on September 15, 2006 and on the television show Austin City Limits featuring Van Morrison.

Augie Meyers - The West Side Sound

Great feature by veteran music reporter Jim Beal on Augie Meyers, a pioneer of the Westside Sound of San Antonio.

August "Augie" Meyers (b. 31 May 1940 in San Antonio, Texas) is a Texas musician. He is best known as keyboard-player with the Sir Douglas Quintet and the Texas Tornados.

In the early 1960s Meyers was, with Doug Sahm, a founding member of the Sir Douglas Quintet. His Vox organ was a main ingredient in the sound of the quintet, as heard in hits like "She’s About A Mover" (1964), "Mendocino" (1969), "Nuevo Laredo" (1970) and many others. Later Meyers also played on many of Sahms solo albums and released his own solo records, also in Tex-Mex-style.

In the 1990s Meyers was, with Doug Sahm, Flaco Jiménez and Freddy Fender, a member of Tex-Mex-supergroup Texas Tornados. He was also sought after as a studio musician. He worked, amongst others, with Bob Dylan on his albums Time Out of Mind (1997) and Love and Theft (2001).

In 2005 he played on John Hammond's CD covering Tom Waits songs, Wicked Grin, and toured with Hammond.

Meyers lives in Bulverde, Texas. Since the 1970s he runs his own record labels from there, namely The Texas Re-Cord Company, Superbeet Records and White Boy Records.

Local papers are reporting today that a donor has finally been located for Augie's needed kidney tranplant. Best wishes to Augie Meyer's, family, and friends.

More San Antonio Westside Sound:
Sir Douglas Quintet
The Royal Jesters
Randy Garibay
The Krayolas
Esteban "Steve" Jordan

UPDATE: San Antonio Current reports Augie Meyers received a new kidney and is doing well. (4/24/2010)

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Sam Baker - Juarez (Song to Himself)

Sam Baker

Sam Baker on MySpace

Sam Baker on Music Road Records

Sam Baker thinks of "Mercy" as a collection of atonal story songs — little movies backed by instrumentation that feels like film scoring. It's a good description.

"Intellectually, I knew his songs were great from the moment I heard them. But on a personal level, I was deeply moved," says Austin musician Walt Wilkins, who co-produced Baker's first two albums. "What Sam writes about — and where he writes from — is completely universal."

After the critical success of "Mercy," Baker thought in longer terms — wanting to release two more albums, similar in tone and instrumentation, that would comprise a reflective trilogy. As "Mercy" was about fate, his newly released "Cotton" is a sophisticated record about forgiveness and forgetting. "Pretty World," released second in line in 2007, is in fact the final installment a message of gratitude.

Baker grew up in Itasca, Texas, a small, rural town of about 1,200, on the prairie between Waco and Fort Worth. “There were 35 people in my high school class—1972. And everybody did everything. Everybody played in the band; I played football, basketball, baseball. You had to.”

He graduated from North Texas State and briefly worked as a bank examiner, but a restless spirit led him to many jobs and eventually, like Phil Ochs, to wander the world.

From his bio: "...In 1986, at age 32, Baker was traveling in Peru when, as he says, “I got in the middle of somebody else’s war.” A terrorist bomb (the Sendero Luminoso or “Shining Path” Maoist group) blew up the train he and some friends were riding on. Several passengers died, including a German boy and his parents, who were sitting next to Baker. Though he nearly bled to death, Sam survived but suffered a constellation of injuries and aftereffects—shrapnel in his leg, renal failure, brain damage, even gangrene.

“Right now, the loudest thing I hear is the ringing in my head,” he says of the Tinnitus, which will never go away. The other obvious reminder of the blast is his left hand, the fingers of which are permanently scrunched and twisted. Fortunately, he has enough dexterity to grip a pick—after re-learning to play guitar left-handed (fretting with the less-injured right hand)—so that he can sing and play some of the most vivid, compelling, truly original songs of any artist working today..."