Houston Music Blog

​Most mornings, Rocks Off wakes up to Elizabeth Cook's country-as-cornbread drawl on her Outlaw Country satellite-radio program, "Apron Strings" (Sirius 63, XM 13, 5-9 a.m. Mondays). On her 2007 LP Balls - produced by the Houston Kid himself, Rodney Crowell - Cook was as frank and charming on songs like "Times Are Tough In Rock and Roll" and "Sometimes It Takes Balls To Be a Woman."

Cook recently appeared in the stage musical The Conway Twitty Story as the Arkansas-born crooner's daughter Joanie; her next album, this time produced by Don Was (Willie Nelson, Rolling Stones), is due in March. Rocks Off spoke with the rural Florida native earlier this week as she traveled from her home in Nashville to Texas, where she opened shows for Guy Clark in Austin and Dallas in addition to her date with Dwight Yoakam at the Arena Theater Saturday.

Rocks Off: Are you as chatty and homespun in real life as you are on "Apron Strings"?

Elizabeth Cook: I think so. I don't know. I haven't really had the time or energy to develop any persona that I would adopt for purposes of the radio show, so yes.

RO: Do you use any notes for your airbreaks, or are they completely off the cuff?

EC: It's completely off the cuff. No notes. I did at first. [Cook has been doing "Apron Strings" a little more than two years.]

Other than Buck Owens, no artist had a bigger effect on Dwight Yoakam than "The Singing Fisherman," Johnny Horton. This East Texas rockabilly cool cat grabbed Rocks Off's attention every time his name was mentioned or a song of his came on the radio. We suspect it was the same for Yoakam, who channels Horton as well as anyone ever has.

Although born in Los Angeles, Horton was raised in Rusk and Gallatin in deep East Texas before he eventually settled in the Shreveport area, where he was a member of the Louisiana Hayride before stardom found him. Ironically, Horton had begun his music career in Los Angeles, playing Cliffie Stone's "Hometown Jamboree" on KLAC-TV.

Not really sure whether it's our alcohol mixture, some pharmacological imbalance our sex life or just male menopausal phenomena, but lately Lonesome, Onry and Mean has been on an evil bluegrass jag. Nothing like playing our Stanley Brothers 45-rpm of "If I Lose" - "If I lose, let me lose/ I don't care how much I lose/ If I lose a hundred dollars while I'm tryin' to win a dime/ My baby, she's got money all the time" - to make us feel like drinkin' a barrel of moonshine, sharpening our razor and ambushin' some revenuers or strangling the no-good lyin' woman who done us wrong and burying her down in the holler by the sycamore tree.

Here are a few of the meaner nuggets in constant rotation this past week:

Stanley Brothers, "Rank Stranger": Certainly the Coen Brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou, with its spot-on Dan Timiniski version of the Stanleys' "Man of Constant Sorrow," brought both bluegrass and Ralph Stanley back into the public consciousness after a long period of dormancy where the music was literally of interest to few people beyond the rabid aficianados LOM often refers to as Bluegrass Nazis.

​While growing up in rural Virginia in the shadow of his beloved Clinch Mountains, a young Ralph Stanley was given his choice of presents to celebrate his 11th birthday: a pig or a banjo. Thankfully for the history of American country and bluegrass music, he chose the latter, even learning to play it in the "clawhammer" style from his music-loving mother.

Ralph Stanley first began performing - not surprisingly - in church, where his take on the simple, a cappella hymn style favored by the Primitive Baptist sect led the congregation to dub him "The Boy with the Hundred Year Old Voice." Stanley traces his musical journey from those mountains and success with brother Carter as the Str Carter's 1966 death and modern resurgence via the soundtrack/tour for O Brother Where Art Thou. Stanley's ethereal and stunning a cappella version of "O Death" has sent chills up the spine of even the most jaded of hipsters.

Photos by Chris Gray

Robert Ellis & the Boys, under the blue neon

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It's no secret Rocks Off is a big fan of the country music, which is why we're starting to get a little excited about the inner-loop honky-tonk scene that's taking root. Over the weekend, we caught Sean Reefer & the Resin Valley Boys doing their hemped-up Hank Williams thang at the West Alabama Ice House, and Miss Leslie & Her Juke-Jointers' Sunday-evening sets (6-9 p.m.) at the Continental Club, a fine way to wind down the weekend, have been drawing a steady crowd for the past couple of months.

But it's Wednesday nights that are becoming the real boon to boot-scooters. We headed out to the railroad tracks last night to get a gander at Robert Ellis & the Boys at Blanco's; the ragtag group of Montrose ruffians - including Austin Sepulvado, Hilary Sloan, Ryan Chavez and Geoffrey Muller - was evidently on loan from Mango's (where they return Nov. 18), but they slid into the hardwood-floor and shuffleboard environs of the River Oaks lounge like clockwork.

​Amidst all the rum, sodomy, and lashing going on this week about the Pogues hitting House of Blues Thursday, it's easy to forget that they have a pretty stellar opener warming up the crowd. Hmm, kinda reminds us of another Irish band that brought a really kick-ass young band with them a few weeks back. Exceptt we don't think Glenn Beck quotes Justin Townes Earle lyrics on his radio show.

Earle will open for the Pogues tomorrow night, despite being felled by a leg injury he suffered late last week. Earle's sporadic Twitter updates indicate that he is still planning on being at the Houston show, and a rep from his label Bloodshot Records confirmed he will be hobbling but nonetheless performing. We didn't hear any definitive answer as to how he got hurt. The roots and country-picking Steve Earle offspring and Townes Van Zandt namesake was just in Houston this past May with the Old Crow Medicine Show at Warehouse Live.

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Arty Hill is a Baltimore, Md., honky-tonker who has been playing regularly in Austin the past couple of years. He also reads Lonesome Onry and Mean's blog religiously and has already penned a couple of new songs based on the goings-on in these pages. He recently contacted LOM about Mike Stinson's list of great honky-tonk drinking songs, noting that none of Stinson's featured women in the central roles.

Hill writes to LOM: "I really liked Mike's list of his favorite drinking songs. Then I started making mine, and quickly realized they were all about women. Drunk women. Ah well... I've sorta set up my own classification system."

The Big Bang

"The Wild Side of Life" - written by Arlie Carter and William Warren, as recorded by Hank Thompson; "Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud Loud Music)" written by Max Fidler, Joe and Rose Lee Maphis, recorded by Joe and Rose Lee Maphis

"I always think of these tunes together. They're from the early '50s, when all songs about derelicts - let alone the female kind - still had shock value. And they're plain and simple, which is why they never sound dated. "You'd rather have a drink with the first guy you meet / And the only home you'll know is the club down the street." True yesterday, true today."

Rick Shea is one of the most in-demand sidemen in the Los Angeles area. Seven years on the road with Dave Alvin certainly boosted Shea's profile outside the L.A./SoCal scene, but the Alvin gig is only one of many. Shea cut his teeth in the truck stops and roadhouses in his native San Bernardino and has played with Angeleno psychedelic country faves I See Hawks In L.A., eclectic Mexican roots band Tremoloco, honky-tonk angel Heather Myles and about anyone else who needs a guy as handy with a lap steel as he is with a Telecaster.

Along the way, Shea has managed to record five albums of his own, a stellar honky-tonk duets album with Patty Booker, and an old timey roots album with fiddle ace Brantley Kearns. Shea has just released Shelter Valley Blues, his latest solo effort, and it picks up with the same dry desert sound that made his 2000 release Sawbones such a stellar effort.

Shea will be joined by songwriter Mike Stinson, who has just moved to Houston from Los Angeles. Stinson and Shea go way back, so this should be a fine writers-in-the-round show.

6 p.m., Sunday, October 4, at McGonigel's Mucky Duck, 2425 Norfolk, 713-528-5999 or www.mcgonigels.com.

​Rocks Off has been a fan of Robert Earl Keen since we heard 1994's Gringo Honeymoon, and we've really been a fan since we heard his previous album, A Bigger Piece of Sky, shortly thereafter. We got Keen's latest album, The Rose Hotel (Lost Highway), in the mail this week, and after a few listens, think it's his best since 2001's Gravitational Forces. (He'll be at House of Blues December 28, by the way; tickets go on sale tomorrow.)

Rose Hotel closes with "Wireless In Heaven," a spirited bluegrass song that asks the question on a lot of people's minds these days: "Does Jesus have a Web site?" (We Googled our Lord and Savior and he appears to have lots, like this one.) It's a pretty funny song, but doesn't quite hit the highs (and lows) of classic honky-tonk wit. So we did a little more research, and this is what we came up with. Please tell us if we forgot something.

Chris Gray

Sherwood Cryer at G's Ice House, 1999

​Sherwood Cryer, who co-founded legendary super-size Pasadena honky-tonk Gilley's and watched it rocket to worldwide fame in the wake of 1980's Urban Cowboy before a bitter falling out with his partner Mickey Gilley led to the club's demise, passed away last Thursday at his Houston-area home. He was 83, and the cause was natural causes, abc13.com reported.

Cryer, a native of the tiny East Texas town of Diboll, moved to Pasadena after World War II and worked as a welder for Shell before saving up enough money to buy a string of convenient stores, honky-tonks, beer joints and icehouses. In 1971, he spotted a young piano player named Mickey Gilley and offered to split the take of his club on Spencer Highway with Gilley if the musician would play there six nights a week. It was called Shelly's at the time, and Cryer was already bringing in some notable names.

"It was an open-air affair, and made big money," Cryer told the Austin Chronicle in 1999. "Hell, I had all the stars - Willie Nelson when he was still runnin' a three-piece band, Roy Acuff, George Jones. Used to get him for $250 a night. So it rocked along there for several years. I wasn't settin' the world on fire, but I was bringin' in country music."

This weekend at the Woodlands comes one of the most prolific trios of artists to ever appear on the same bill. Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp converge on the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion for what looks to be one of those landmark shows people brag about catching, kind of like the Dylan/Paul Simon gig out there about a decade ago.

Nelson is so ingrained into the state psyche that if we ever decided to make our own musical Mount Rushmore in West Texas, he would be on it. Along with Frank, Billy and Dusty of course. And maybe Townes and Doug Sahm.

Between building a prodigious recording catalog, ranging from gritty country to, er, elevated reggae fusion, the Red Headed Stranger has been no stranger to the silver screen. The 76-year-old's music is a soundtrack staple, ranging from Bush-baiting Oliver Stone tale W. to the Oscar-winning bromance Brokeback Mountain.

The man has also had his time in front of the camera, mainly playing wise old men not unlike himself and stoner seniors also not unlike himself. Willie may not have much range, but it's always a treat to see him on the big or small screen. We're also pretty sure his on-set trailer is the coolest place to be on the planet. Probably just looking at it from afar would give you a contact high of the utmost order.

 It seems for every great female country singer, there's a man who has invented a new way to break her heart, be it by leaving or simply not returning her desires. The latter is the case on Miss Leslie's HPMA-nominated "Between the Whiskey and the Wine." This song will make your heart ache.

This is traditional country all the way, complete with whining guitar that'll pulls at the heartstrings. Vocally, Miss Leslie takes a page from prominent country artist like Tammy Wynette and Dolly Parton, using her powerful vocals to add conviction to the lyrics. Though this is a story that everyone can relate to, they're just words - it's Miss Leslie's voice, which leans more towards gospel at times, that makes the "Whiskey" so damn believable.

As if Wednesday night's drunken, surly and bearded Clutch show wasn't enough for the House Of Blues staff, tonight they get to rassle with the musical stylings of one David Allan Coe, openers 1100 Springs and Sean Reefer & The Resin Valley Boys.

Long a fixture on the Houston honky-tonk scene, Reefer and the Resins' odes to marijuana, cocaine, whiskey, pills and No-Doz are the stuff of local legend. Never before have we encountered such a weed-tastic group of pickers since that old red-headed dude with the funky-smelling bus that is somehow fueled by corn juice.

Have a listen at "Texas Hill Country and see if you don't agree.

Lonesome, Onry and Mean likes him some country music done right, so it was with considerable delight that we listened to Country Club by X bassist/singer John Doe and the Sadies. An L.A. rocker and a Canadian alt-country outfit seem like unlikely musical bedfellows, but Country Club works from the first note of the Carl Belew/W. S. Stevenson classic made famous by Patsy Cline, "Stop the World and Let Me Off."

Doe's bruised-and-damaged-man vocals work perfectly with Roger Miller's tearjerker "Husbands and Wives" and the mournful steel guitar etched "'Til I Get It Right." The entire album is solid, but the standout tracks are Doe's stirring version of the Hank Snow chestnut "A Fool Such As I," an absolutely amazing take on Willie Nelson's "Night Life" and some great redneck renditions of Bob Bare's "Detroit City" and Merle Haggard's evergreen polit-cultural commentary, "Are the Good Times Really Over For Good."

Foreground: Faron Young (leaning on piano), Tammy Wynette (at piano). Back row (l-r): Unidentified man, Hank Thompson, George Jones, Vern Gosdin, Marty Robbins

"Don't you think you should've called

To tell me you were coming down

Oh, you look so out of place

On this troubled side of town"

- Vern Gosdin, "Do You Believe Me Now"

Lonesome Onry and Mean has been lax in his duties, not reporting that one of the greatest country singers of all time passed away April 28. The fact that Vern Gosdin was known simply as The Voice in a town filled with singers says about all there is to say about one of the few singers who could hang with George Jones come hell or high water.

Gosdin, who passed away at 74 due to complications of a stroke he'd suffered several weeks earlier, spent his entire life in music. He achieved some small success in Los Angeles, where he played in one of Chris Hillman's early bands, the Hillmen. But after a move to Atlanta and brief stint as the owner of a glass business, Emmylou Harris reconnected with Gosdin; two demo duets with her brought him to Nashville's attention and he signed with Elektra Records. "Hangin' On" and "Yesterday's Gone" were his first charting singles.

For LOM, the name Vern Gosdin will always recall his monster honky-tonk hit "Set 'Em Up, Joe" with the classic barroom line with its reference to the Ernest Tubb classic, "Set 'em up, Joe, and play 'Walkin' The Floor.'"

Continue reading " Lonesome Onry and Mean: R.I.P."...

Cathy Hubach/ www.blazefoley.net

It's been a long time in the making, but apparently the long-rumored documentary on Austin songwriting legend Blaze Foley is about to finally get a screening. Thursday, Lonesome Onry and Mean received an email from Old Quarter Acoustic Café empressario Wrecks Bell announcing a showing of the documentary May 29 at the Galveston club.

The showing will include a concert by long-time Foley friend and musical partner Gurf Morlix, who memorialized Foley on his album Last Exit To Happyland, on the song "Music You Might've Made," earlier this year.

As usual with this snakebitten project, there is confusion even about the title, as Foley's Web site calls the film Blaze Foley Inside (Drunken Angel) while the Abraxas Media trailer shows Blaze Foley: The Duct Tape Messiah.

Since we've been debating the good, bad and ugly of honky-tonk in these (Web) pages lately, this marks a good point to announce the new American Beat/Sony reissue of two George Jones classics, 1972's A Picture of Me (Without You) and the next year's Nothing Ever Hurt Me (Half As Bad As Losing You). Combined onto one disc, the albums represent the epitome of Billy Sherrill's countrypolitan sound and are a long way from anything that can be described as traditional honky tonk.

Even though the lyrics contain more cheese than a giant pizza, Jones is still Jones, climbing so far inside the lyrics he forces us not only to listen but to get it.

www.stillisstillmoving.com

John Belushi (left) and Poodie Locke, date unknown

Word has reached Lonesome, Onry and Mean that longtime Willie Nelson stage manager Poodie Locke passed away shortly after 3 p.m. this afternoon. The cause of death is said to be a "massive heart attack."

Reports of Locke's passing have just gone up on Austin360.com, and Nelson has informed fans via his Web site and Twitter.

LOM's source, who asked not to be named, said she learned via a phone call from a member of Locke's family around 4:30 p.m., and that Locke was at home with his mother at the time of death.

Continue reading " Lonesome Onry and Mean: R.I.P."...

Steve Earle will play the Crighton Theater Thursday, June 18, as a last-minute addition to the Montgomery County seat's annual Sound of Texas Music Series. The show, says Conroe City Councilman Jay Ross Martin, is a "bonus that we got the chance to add."

Earle's tribute disc to mentor Townes Van Zandt, Townes, will be released May 12, and the "Guitar Town" and "Copperhead Road" author will give a special in-store performance 5 p.m. Saturday, May 16, at Cactus Music. Townes is now available for pre-purchase at Cactus; those buying the album will receive a wristband that guarantees entry to the in-store. In other words, don't count on being able to just walk in to this one.

"His last in-store had many people who purchased the CD from us unable to get in to see the in-store, and he actually had a gig [at Verizon Wireless Theater] that night," says Cactus owner Quinn Bishop via email. "With us being the only venue to see him, the performance will be met with even more anticipation. I think we'll sell out of pre-sales by a week before."

http://www.talentondisplay.com/LeonPayne.html

Lonesome, Onry and Mean has been thinking about Hank Williams a lot lately since being presented with a copy of Waylon Sings Hank. One of LOM's favorite Hank tunes has always been the mournful "Lost Highway," which much later lent its name to Universal's alt-country boutique label.

A lot of people think Hank Sr. wrote "Lost Highway," but it was in fact written by an old boy with quite a Houston connection, Leon Payne. Payne, who was born in Alba in East Texas, spent time in Houston in the early 1950s, working with people like Jerry Irby. It was during this period that Payne began recording for Capitol and had a modicum of national success.

Payne, who lost his eyesight at a young age, had a hit with "I Love You Because," and the tune has since been widely covered by both pop and country performers. Payne also wrote another song made famous by Williams, "They'll Never Take Her Love From Me." But, as Williams was fond of saying, "Lost Highway" put a lot of biscuits on Payne's table.

One of my all-time favorite Waylon Jennings songs has always been "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?" Waylon (and Willie) saw early on that Nashville had an evil habit of turning on its stars, taking the work of the greats and dumbing it down to the mediocre.

A few weeks ago, I saw Kevin "Shinyribs" Russell power his way through the song with all the surliness and independent screw-you attitude that the lyric calls for. "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?" will always be bigger in Austin than it ever was in Nashville.

Waylon was always a great fan of Hank Williams, and often included covers of Williams tunes like "Darling Let's Turn Back the Years" in his set lists. Waylon even released an album of Hank covers, Ol' Waylon Sings Ol' Hank, on his own label in 1992, but not many copies of that one were even pressed, much less sold, so it remains a rarity.

The album was reissued by YMC Records of Dallas in 2006 as Waylon Sings Hank Williams, and has been reissued again this year under the same title. (Copies are available at Sig's Lagoon and Cactus Music.) I was never aware of this album, recorded in 1985, until local record distributor Armando Sanchez handed me a copy a few weeks back.

Continue reading " Lonesome Onry and Mean: Ol'"...

Lost your job? 401(k) a distant memory? Still think a country boy can survive? Well, America, you're in luck: Hank Williams Jr. feels your pain, and he wants to help out. Today, in conjunction with his new single "Red, White and Pink-Slip Blues," Hank Jr. announced his "Bocephus Bailout Package." According to his publicity firm, Bocephus is dipping into his pockets "in an effort to help tax-paying Americans get through these hard times."

In other words, if you don't pay your taxes, as far as ol' Hank is concerned, you can just fuck right off then. If you're in good standing with the IRS, though, he's got quite an offer for you. He'll give you and one of your rowdy friends $1,500 towards travel and hotel to one of his concert locations, plus an additional $1,000 spending money - which, considering his only non-casino date at the moment is June 13 at the Republic of Texas biker rally in Austin, you're definitely going to need.

It doesn't stop there...

Shooter Jennings & the .357s

Bad Magick

www.shooterjennings.com

"I don't wanna be a legend/ I just wanna be a man," Shooter Jennings sings on "Living Proof," a Hank Williams Jr. cover and one of two previously unreleased songs on Bad Magick, which otherwise rounds up the best of Jennings' three studio albums starting with 2005's Put the "O" Back In Country. The song is an obvious fit for Shooter: alongside Bocephus, he inherited one of Nashville's most formidable legacies when father Waylon passed away in 2002, which he embraces wholeheartedly on the grateful "It Ain't Easy."

Elsewhere, he juices his dad's gruff yet tender-hearted style with lots of sex ("Manifesto No. 1"), drugs ("Busted In Baylor County") and rock and roll, from the exhilarating open-air travelogue of "4th of July" to 10-minute live firestorm "Daddy's Farm," where his roots in L.A. hard rockers Stargunn explode all over Sirius/XM Radio's New York studios.

Note to lonesome L.A. cowboys (hangin' out and hangin' on): DO NOT put your too-trite, beat-up, scuffed-up, working-man's boots on the cover of your CD. Ditto your two-tone cowboy boots.

LA tonky David Serby has the Dwight Yoakam look nailed on his second album, Honkytonk and Vine, right down to turned-up collars on his Levi's jacket and the poofty little handkerchief tie around his neck. The whole thing just screams "LA phony." If you think image is everything, you need to check out Redd Volkaert in his over-alls and tennis shoes sometime.

Everything about this exercise in turd-polishing is all wrong. Up against the playing of L.A.'s session elite, Serby's voice is monotonous and permanently flat; he couldn't hit a note much outside middle C with a hand grenade. Singing seems so unnatural to Serby that it sounds as if his vocals have been cut-and-pasted into the mix, often not quite fitting the rhyme scheme. Zero vocal subtlety. Zero.

Outside Asleep at the Wheel's almost 40-year run, the Derailers are one of Austin's longest-lived retro-country acts. Country bands in Texas don't attain this kind of longevity unless they can find that two-step dance pocket and fill a dance floor. True dancehall pros, the 'Railers have been doing it so long they can probably do it in their sleep. Even the departure of longtime frontman Tony Villanueva a few years back hasn't slowed the Derailers bus down.

I remember how in-the-know I thought I was when the band first started playing the old Satellite Lounge in 1996. I wore out the Live Tracks CD and bought another. My kids didn't much like honky-tonk, but Live Tracks became a favorite of theirs. Then wily Dave Alvin got hold of the band and they delivered Jackpot!, which was a scorcher of a country album and brought the band into the national spotlight.