Stoney LaRue - Oklahoma Breakdown

Stoney LaRue Website

At 3 years old, Stoney LaRue could be found belting out “Swinging” by John Anderson on his Mr. Microphone radio. The son of a struggling bass player and a nurse, LaRue understood the allure of music at an early age, and recorded his first works at age twelve. He earned accolades through school for his unmatched vocal abilities and promising instrumental talents.

Many subscribe Stoney LaRue to the category of artists that are simply natural born performers, just don’t try to limit him by category. Born in Taft,Texas, LaRue actually spent the majority of his adolescence north of the Red River, where he was raised in Southeastern Oklahoma . He never really pictured himself doing anything else but making good music, so LaRue eventually made his way to the state’s Red Dirt hotbed of Stillwater, where he began to develop his individualized style from a widespread range of influences. From Willie Nelson to Ray Charles, to The Grateful Dead and Kris Kristofferson, LaRue’s emerging style impressively blends varied elements of country, blues, and soulful rock into cohesive, vocal driven performances. His abilities earned the immediate respect of then “up and coming” peers including Cody Canada, Mike McClure, Jason Boland, and other cohorts of the revitalizing Texas and Red Dirt circuits (now electrifying audiences nationwide.)

In 2002, both fans and industry took good notice of LaRue after he spearheaded The Organic Boogie Band and released ”Downtown,” which was recorded in private sessions at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa and mixed in a trailer on the side of a cliff in Bartlesville,OK. It was just the beginning, as the debut cemented LaRue’s following and inspired a move to New Braunfels, Texas, where a vibrant music community and a persistent touring schedule spawned a vast response. Fans anxiously awaited the August 2005 release of Stoney LaRue-the Red Dirt Album, which hit the Billboard sales charts in its debut week. A far cry from the mixing trailer on the cliff, The Red Dirt Album was recorded with a tight circle of players and professionals in a studio setting. The record was a pinnacle effort for LaRue and has inarguably established his triple threat status as a truly gifted vocalist, player, and performer. Armed with golden ear musicianship, an amusing wit, and soulful magnetism, LaRue’s shows are infused with an uplifting quality, a cathartic barroom brand of spirituality, where venues are complimented for good bar “feng shui,” and where time and dimension can be traversed via emotive lyrics and melodic riffs. A charismatic performer, LaRue’s flawless vocals can draw a crowd to a open mouth level of sonic mesmerization, and next have them singing “Forever Young” so loudly that you can’t hear anything else. At 28 years old, Stoney LaRue now performs close to 300 dates a year at top festivals and venues across the nation and even the Caribbean, sharing bills with renowned acts like Lee Ann Womack, Gary Allan,Dierks Bentley, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Radney Foster, and others. With a newly assembled band that includes Jeremy Bryant (drums), Jesse Fritz (bass), Rodney Pyeatt (guitar), and Steve Littleton (keys), Stoney LaRue is poised for his upcoming addition to the famed Live at Billy Bob’s series and even greater horizons to come. The music is undeniably inside of Stoney LaRue, but he’s the type of artist that doesn’t HAVE to point it out to you, his belief in the music is strong enough that it just powers through transparently. Stoney LaRue is not trying to be anybody but the artist that he is, and his sincerity just seeps out, spills off the stage, and overtakes any room.

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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