With a family member currently visiting us from the Lone Star State - what better time to pull together another great playlist for you.
Here are nine songs from some famous (and not so famous) Texas musical alumni - plus one song nominally about Texas. As ever, I think there is something in here for everyone to enjoy.....
1. Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble: Texas Flood
Straight in with something huge - the title track from Vaughan's 1983 debut album. He is such an under-rated guitarists - such technique, power and pure passion made him mesmerising to watch and listen to. The whole album was recorded in three days at Jackson Browne's LA studio and includes this cover of a 1958 Larry Davis blues standard. Vaughan was attracted by its "intriguing guitar parts" and then added several improvised solos to the original.
(Live on Austin City Limits)
2. ZZ Top: Cheap Sunglasses
By the time we were properly aware of the Top in the UK with 1983's Eliminator, they were already seven albums in, with their blues rock boogie already popular back in the States. This minor hit was from their sixth album, 1979s Dagüello, their first for Warner Bros. Billy Gibbons had spent much of the previous two years in Europe, and had got an introduction to punk music, which would meld into the works for this record. Dagüello means 'no quarter' in Spanish, and was apparently a bugle call used by the Mexican Army at the Battle of the Alamo in 1836. Cheap Sunglasses has been sampled by many since, including rap duo EPMD and Kid Rock.
(1980 - live on The Old Grey Whistle Test)
3. Khruangbin: Pelota
The Houston band have quietly made a name for themselves in recent years, blending elements of soul, funk and psychedelic rock. Guitarist Mark Speer met drummer DJ Johnson through a local area gospel band, and then met future bassist Laura Lee through a mutual love of Afghan music and middle eastern architecture. Pelota, from third album Mordechai, beautifully fuses together Latin sounds with the echoing guitars of west Africa (used to great effect subsequently on their tribute album for Ali Farka Toure).
(2020 - Official video)
4. Butthole Surfers: Pepper
At Trinity University, San Antonio, in the late 1970s, Gibson 'Gibby' Haynes was captain of the basketball team and an Accountant of the Year, while Paul Leary was a serious MBA student. This studious outward appearance hid their somewhat alternative sense of humour and love of experimental music. But by 1981, the Butthole Surfers had formed, and finding few fans in San Antonio, they moved to California. Dead Kennedy's frontman, Jello Biafra, quickly became a huge admirer, getting them support slots for his band and some recording done via his label, Alternative Tentacles. Their early experimental work would be a huge influence on the future grunge movement, and Kurt Cobain in particular (who would also meet future wife, Courtney Love, at a Surfers gig). As they entered the 1990s, their output softened somewhat - John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin) who produced 1993s Independent Worm Saloon, encouraged them towards the mainstream. The 1996 album Electriclarryland includes this song, Pepper, which topped the US Modern Rock chart and had a video that included Erik Estrada (Ponch from CHiPs)!
(1996 - Official video. Strange tune, strange video)
5. Sir Douglas Quintet: She's About A Mover
Doug Sahm had already sung professionally on the radio by aged 5, and performed on stage with no less than Hank Williams Sr by age 11 (Hank's final performance). The Sir Douglas Quintet had roots in 1964, when Sahm and buddy Augie Meyers got together in San Antonio and were just known as Sir Douglas, before the rest of the original quintet joined - Jack Barber, Frank Morin and Johnny Perez. She's About A Mover is probably one of their best known tunes, ending up in countless films over the years, including Echo Park (1986), The Doors (1991) and Beautiful Darling (2010). The song is driven by a big vox organ riff and follows a basic 12-bar blues format. Although perhaps not noticeable on this song, Sahm and co were considered pioneers of infusing tex-mex and cajun influences into 60s rock music.
(1965 NBC performance. Notice that the set dressers must have see the Sir in the band
name and gone full retro-English)
6. The Flatlanders: Dallas
I first became aware of this song and band, when 10,000 Maniacs and David Byrne covered the tune on their 1992 MTV Unplugged show. The Flatlanders formed in Lubbock in 1972, barely lasting a year the first time around, before members Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely and Butch Hancock went on to solo work. Through that, interest in their older work grew, and so the Flatlanders still sporadically record and play together. Dallas was a Gilmore composed tune, released as a promo single back in that first phase, which didn't chart, before their debut album, All American Music, was scrapped.
(Live on Austin City Limits)
7. R.E.M.: Texarkana
Okay - here is the slight deviation - a song about Texas, rather than by Texans. This song was a rare lead vocal for bass player Mike Mills on REM's seventh studio album, Out Of Time. Although never officially released as a single, it still somehow managed to reach number 4 on the US Modern Rock charts. It has a very tenuous position in this playlist, as the final album version doesn't even mention Texarkana (a town on the Texas - Arkansas border)! Older outtakes with Michael Stipe singing do apparently include the line, "When I'm out in Texarkana, where's that county line." Anyway, it's a glorious song, so it's in....
(2017 - Help The Hoople benefit for Scott McCuaghey. Includes Mills and Buck - and as
camera pans around, notice Corin Tucker and Janet Weiss from Sleater-Kinney)
8. Waylon Jennings: Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way
Waylon Jennings (Littlefield, TX) was a key driver in what became known as Outlaw Country in the 70s - and also on many young men of my generations radars as the balladeer and narrator of essential Saturday night show, Dukes Of Hazzard. But long before that, a young Waylon had found himself playing bass with Buddy Holly, post-Crickets. He was there that fateful 1959 night, when Holly chartered a plane from Mason City, Iowa to Fargo, North Dakota, to get ahead for the following show over in Minnesota. There are disputed versions, but the most accepted is that Jennings gave up his seat for a flu-ridden JP 'The Big Bopper' Richardson. The rest sadly, is history. The 80s would see him join country supergroup, The Highwaymen, with Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash. But here, we go back to the 1975 album Dreaming My Dreams, which spawned this, his fourth number one on the Country chart. It is an ode to the great Hank Williams Sr and a bit of an attack on the glitzy world of 70s country.
(1990 - live at the Nassau Coliseum)
9. Buddy Holly: That'll Be The Day
Charles 'Buddy' Holly fused gospel, country and R&B into the new rock n roll. By 1956, a twenty year old Holly was opening for Elvis Presley, and later that year, Bill Haley and the Comets. That brought him to the attention of Decca Records. But the sessions they sent him to were with Owen Bradley, who preferred quite orchestrated arrangements, like the ones he had used for the likes of Patsy Cline. So, Holly took his work to producer Norman Petty, over in Clovis, New Mexico. Petty helped him sign to Brunswick Records, who put out the fruits of their endeavours - That'll Be The Day - as being by The Crickets (to avoid contract disputes with Decca). Before he knew it, the song was number one on both US and UK. The song was written by Holly and Jerry Allison, with the refrain coming from something John Wayne repeats several times in 1956 western, The Searchers.
(1957 - live on the Ed Sullivan Show. Short and sweet)
10. Willie Nelson: On The Road Again
Willie Nelson, from Abbott, Texas (25 miles northwest of Waco), had been around the block many times by the time we get to this song, which would become one of his most popular standards. He had made a name as a writer for others (Crazy for Patsy Cline) and had been a star of the Outlaw scene, fighting back against the more conservative, traditional elements of the Nashville country establishment. In 1980 he was acting in the film Honeysuckle Rose, with Dyan Cannon, when the producer asked for a song for the soundtrack. On The Road Again was the result, apparently written on the back of a sick bag. Regardless of how much effort went into the writing, it is a fan favourite and won the Grammy for Best Country Song, and in 2011 was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
(1990 - live on Austin City Limits)