Texas Music

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A quick note as I wrap up my holiday trip to Texas.  I got to see some good music while here.  On the Saturday before Christmas my Dad and I caught Rick Trevino and Asleep at the Wheel at the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar while my Mom and Cynthia shopped.  I had heard of, but hadn’t heard Rick before and really enjoyed his set.  I think my favorite song was his cover of Wasted Days, Wasted Nights.

I have been an Asleep at the Wheel fan for a long time.  This show was a quartet rather than the full swing band.  What I hadn’t realized before was just how incredibly talented a guitar player Ray Benson is - I really enjoyed this set.  Way Down Texas Way is probably my favorite of theirs.  If you’re a fan of Bob Wills and Western Swing, check them out at the Broken Spoke sometime.

On Friday, my sister, brother-in-law, B.P. (*) and I headed down to San Antonio to catch the Old 97’s at Sam’s Burger Joint.  These guys have been my favorite band for close to a decade.  I found the venue to be a little strange, but overall it was great to see the 97s at home (Rhett’s a 7th generation Texan!)  Despite some initial sound issues, the show was great and I came out with a better appreciation of the latest album, Blame it on Gravity.  If you haven’t seen these guys live, you really need to check them out.  Rhett is a superlative songwriter and has written one of the perfect songs (Question) and I’m always drawn to Murry’s songs (Up the Devil’s Pay) in concert.  A few other choice songs:

No Baby, I
Barrier Reef
Doreen
Smoker
Murder (or a Heart Attack)
Time Bomb

Ok, that’s more than a few and there are many, many more good ones.  Enjoy.

(*) B.P. = Baby Place.  My sister is very pregnant and already teaching BP about good music.

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Rattlesnakes and Relatives

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FYI - the tag line for this blog is "a blog sometimes about music."

Apparently centuries of Australian breeding didn’t teach my Mom’s Blue Heeler, Cheyenne, that she shouldn’t go sticking her nose around things that rattle.  At the ranch this past weekend she took a bite from a North American rattlesnake and lived to tell about it.  There’s Cheyenne in better days to the right…

That’s not my story.

While talking about Cheyenne’s pitiful state, my Mom dropped this gem about my grandfather, Bliss Wilson.  Papaw did not like snakes at all, though his job as a soil conservationist in rural Oklahoma probably kept him in close proximity to them.  One day, on a drive back from fishing at the farm, he and Mamaw heard a loud buzzing in the pickup.  My grandfather, thinking it was a rattler, jumped out of the moving truck while it was still in gear, leaving my grandmother to fend for herself as it rolled to a stop.

Ultimately the sound was snagged fishing line being pulled through a reel.  No harm no foul I guess, but my grandmother still hasn’t forgiven Papaw for leaving her in a moving truck that he thought had a rattlesnake in it!

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