Texas Country LIVE!

May 12, 2008
By Joe Hyde
Special to LIVE!

Texas music has become popular in many areas of Texas—especially around college campuses from College Station to Lubbock. You have a unique opportunity to explore some of the top artists on the Texas and Red Dirt (Oklahoma) circuit today.

These are the guys (and gals) who are packing the music venues. For the Southwest Texas area, the nearest live music venue is in Uvalde, at the Lonestar Saloon, located north of town on U.S. Hightway 83, 2429 Milam St. www.lonestarsaloon-uvalde.com. And if you are in the San Antonio area, Greune Hall is the grand daddy of all Texas dance halls and live music venues. It’s just north of the city off I-35 in Gruene, Texas (www.gruenehall.com). In San Angelo, the venue is Blaine’s Pub, 10 W. Harris St. (www.blainespub.com). Texas music is all around you!

In conjunction with the San Angelo radio station KDCD 92.9 FM Lonestar True Country, LIVE! Magazine is producing Texas Country LIVE!, a weekly radio program devoted to letting the fans of Texas music learn more about the artists and their music. The show airs Saturdays from 6 p.m. until 10 p.m. and is repeated Sundays from 1 p.m. until 5 p.m.

Even if you live outside the radio coverage area of San Angelo, you can still enjoy the interviews with the artists via the Internet. See www.sanangelolive.com/texascountry for Podcasts of each week’s programs.

Here is who we’re interviewing in the coming month, and a little more about the artists.

May 10: Jason Boland

By Chelsea Schmid

Any Jason Boland fan knows that he and the Stragglers are no strangers to San Angelo, they’ve played here for many years now and they’ve got themselves a good set of regular attendees. The band formed nine years ago, but Jason and band mate Brad Rice met in college, a short-lived experience for both.

“I think Brad was in the college of business too—I was in marketing. Guys like us just go to get a degree, you know? We’re the types of people that the things we’re really interested in you either don’t need to go to college for or if you do, you’re just going there to get a degree and you’re probably not going to be doing exactly whatever you get into anyway. We were just kind of figuring out what we wanted to do.

Jason Boland and The Stragglers have released five studio albums and an additional live album, at Billy Bob’s in Fort Worth, which is something of a Texas/red dirt country music industry mandate.

In a recent interview, Jason and I had just swapped rained-out stories from our excursions to the Cd. Anuña, Mexico Corona Club across the river from Del Rio (I had relayed my experience with a Charlie Robison recording there) when Drew Kennedy, co-writer of the title track from Boland’s most recent studio release “The Bourbon Legend” walked up. As it would turn out, the two actually played together for the first time ever right here in San Angelo at Blaine’s Pub, where Drew had just finished a set. Jason speaks of the idea for the song “Bourbon Legend”:

“It was an idea I had from a guy named Jay Lamb, and I had just never written on it,” Boland says. “He was like ‘bourbon legend would be a great idea for a song,’ and I was like ‘I know, it would be,’ and then I started to write the chorus at one time and it never went anywhere. After Gary Stuart died I started messing with it again with Drew over there…”

“It’s good to collaborate with a friend,” Drew says. “It’s just so much more relaxed when you can write with someone you know and trust.”

Corry Morrow. (contributed photo/Cory Morrow) (click image to enlarge)

May 17: Cory Morrow

By Joe Hyde

Cory Morrow is an old hand in the Texas country music scene. The Texas Tech graduate runs with classmate Pat Green, and writes songs with Walt Wilkins and Radney Foster.

He just released a new album, “Vagrants and Kings.” And with it comes new music.

His latest single, the gospel-tinged "(Sometimes I Stumble, That’s When) He Carries Me," carries sentiment of a higher realm. While themes of salvation and redemption are not new in Morrow’s work, on the Vagrants And Kings record he approaches such weighty issues with the fervor of a true believer. "Lord, You Devil," co-written with Del Rio native Radney Foster, is a humorous tune offering props to a mysterious, omniscient God.

May 24: Mark David Manders

By Joe Hyde

The 45-year-old Manders isn’t the typical “wet-behind-the-ears” kid with a catchy tune or two, singing about a life he’s yet to live. Behind all the antics and fun at his shows, there is a genuinely intellectual man who is thoughtful and offers insight into the songwriting craft and entertainment business.

Manders is a poet, and his influences may include a little Willie Nelson or Jerry Jeff Walker, but he is just as passionate about Lord Byron, the eccentric and controversial 19th century Romantic poet. Manders started reading the works of poets like Byron at the tender age of 13.

“I realized at that point that words have gravity. They have meaning,” Manders says, after quoting several cantos of Lord Byron’s poem, “The Corsair.” “They draw people into things. Of course we have other songs about ‘Let’s drink beer,’ because you have to get ‘the other people’ in first. But then you go, ‘and here’s another cool song about something else where all the words play on each other.’” (Lord Byron’s “The Corsair,” a semi-autobiographical tale about a pirate, sold 10,000 copies its first day of sale in 1814.)

Manders recorded a rowdy live record at Blaine’s Pub in San Angelo in January: “Sort of like a ‘Hold my Hand and Watch This’ rowdy time,” he says. “Hold My Hand and Watch This” is the name of the album, to be released this year.

May 31: Bleu Edmondson

By Jennifer Litz

Bleu Edmondson gets really personal on this new album, “Lost Boy.” He says he had a four-year stint of tough times, and plenty of time to sit down and get perspective on it. It’s not that he had harder times than anyone else, he says, just that the pressures of his particular job invite professional scrutiny and personal hardship.

“The whole record, the title of it, that’s pretty autobiographical,” he says. “It’s funny, when it all came together, how there’s a recurring theme of faith, which was never intended. I didn’t see it until we put all the songs on the record. But ultimately that’s how it was—and as I’ve said before, it’s not an indictment of faith, and I’m not trying to promote it.” Edmondson says “Jesus is Crying” is one of his favorite songs, because it reflects his inability to make good decisions, something to which many can relate—even if they aren’t rock stars.

“It’s a fun job, but it’s also real scary sometimes,” Edmondson says. “Doesn’t matter how successful you are—ultimately if you do what I do, you’re inviting people into judge you. Which is a scary thing for musicians or entertainers period. Because most of the time we do this because we’re starved weirdos that want acceptance in some way. So it’s a scary thing for me to get up there and sing this song, and people could say, ‘that’s really stupid,’ or ‘that’s really great.’ In terms of that, it’s kind of demanding. On the other side, in terms of my personal life, this job does not make it easy at all. I have a lot of trust issues anyway—I mean, no girl is gonna get with me for being rich, cause I’m not rich, but I played 240 shows last year. I’m gone three weeks out of every month. So it’s a lot of separation, I gotta have a lot of trust and faith in whoever I decide to be with. But it’s no different than anyone else. It’s the same thing if you work down the street from each other, I guess.”