Rising out of the same East Dallas garage scene that birthed bands such as Jimmy Vaughan's Chessmen and younger brother Stevie Ray's The Cast Of Thousandsnot to mention the Briks, the Novas, the Five Americans and so many moreKenny and the Kasuals started out playing for chips and soda under the name The Illusions Combo in 1964 and were quickly breaking attendance records at Dallas's premiere teen spot, the Studio Club. Slick high school hustler Mark Lee took the group under his wing, dressing them in silk suits and two-tone saddle oxfords (which one local department store were soon displaying as "Kenny's Kasuals"!!) and hyping them relentlessly, resulting in their first record "Nothin' Better To Do" c/w the instrumental "Floatin.'"
Several 45s later they made a daring move when they decided to go all the way and issue an independently produced LP, Impact, which would be recorded live at the Studio Club. Fellow Dallas favorites the Nightcaps had successfully done it with their Wine, Wine, Wine LP so why not? The album was an immediate success. Like the Wailers' Live At The Castle, Impact is both a high water mark for the band that produced itperfectly capturing, as it does, their high energy mixture of punked-up R&B delivered with British Invasion attitude and Lone Star musical chopsbut is also the ultimate musical snap shot of a specific time and place. Like the best albums, Impact goes far beyond just capturing music, it captures atmosphere, standout tracks being possibly the best version of "Money" ever recorded and a reading of fellow Texan Barbara Lynn's "Oh Baby (We Got A Good Thing Goin')" that single-handedly puts the Rolling Stones famed rendition to utter shame. Next up, they pioneered psychedelia with their 1966 single "Journey To Tyme" which featured the unforgettably desperate line "Is it my destinyto be trapped within the walls of time?!"
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Doug was the original Texas Cosmic Cowboy (introduced on this video by Texan Trini Lopez). This is his first nationwide hit but if you stuck around and listened to his stuff as the years went by you couldn't even believe how he played blues, country, rock, Tex mex or whatever he wanted. Bob Dylan pegged him as one of his favorite artists. Back in my radio days I had the pleasure of having lunch with him several times. Little Doug was a trip for sure.
One of my favorites. . . Crossroads . . . "You just can't live in Texas if you don't have a lot of soul"
A crappy video but classic Doug featuring Augie Meyers on organ
The best Texas artist ever might be Fort Worth's own (though Lubbock born) Delbert McClinton. From his early harmonica licks on Hey Baby! to the many songs he has written for other folks, Delbert has been a roadhouse musician all his life. Into his late seventies he's still putting ona great show. Lyle Lovett said that "we all wish we had a voice like Delbert ".
From Happy, Texas. On the advice of Roy Orbison he went to Clovis, New Mexico and recorded this hit with Norman Petty who produced Buddy Holly's early hits.
NoBSU beat me to Mr. Peppermints son Gibby Haynes. I used to go to one of the pocket beaches on Galveston Island on Friday afternoons and listen to them practice/play. $5 for a bottomless plastic cup till the kegs were floated. Good times in the early 80's.
NoBSU beat me to Mr. Peppermints son Gibby Haynes. I used to go to one of the pocket beaches on Galveston Island on Friday afternoons and listen to them practice/play. $5 for a bottomless plastic cup till the kegs were floated. Good times in the early 80's.
Facebook Groups at; Memories of... Dallas, Texas, Football in Texas, Texas Music, Memories From a Texas Window and Dallas History Guild. Come visit!
Van" Cliburn Jr was an American pianist who achieved worldwide recognition in 1958, at the age of 23, when he won the inaugural quadrennial International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow during the Cold War.
Jill Jackson and Ray Hildebrand from Howard Payne College in Brownwood went to Fort Worth and recorded this for Major Bill Smith who released this as "Hey Paula" by Jill and Ray. Jill took cash and Ray opted for residuals.
It got picked up a major label and released as Paul and Paula and went to number one. Ray had other records such as "Corrina, Corrina".
"Bugs" Henderson, was a blues guitarist who was popular in Europe and from the 1970s was based in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, where he was known as a local blues guitar legend. He was born in Palm Springs, California, and spent his early life in Tyler, Texas, where he formed a band called the Sensores at age 16, and later joined Mouse and the Traps. In Dallas-Fort Worth during the early 1970s, he was lead guitarist for the blues/rock band Nitzinger before forming the Shuffle Kings and later a band that was eponymously named.
Henderson played with blues legends such as B. B. King, Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters and Stevie Ray Vaughan, also with Rhythm and Blues saxophonist Don Wise and rock guitarist Ted Nugent. He died from complications of liver cancer just four days after a benefit concert in his name. The performers at the 11-hour "Benefit Bugs" event included Ray Wylie Hubbard, Smokin' Joe Kubek & Bnois King, and Mouse & the Traps, the band from early in his career with the hit songs, "A Public Execution" and "Maid of Sugar Maid of Spice" that featured his guitar solos.
Henderson died from complications of liver cancer, aged 68, in March 2012.
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Born in Floyada, Texas , he grew up in the Gregory- Portland area. He was a member of the Pozo Seco Singers in Corpus and had a nationwide hit with "Time" in the late sixties before going solo and having a long string of number one country hits. The Gentle Giant
Lou Ann Barton is a sassy Texas Blues singer who belts out her roadhouse Blues with a passion that should have made her much more well known. A legend on the Austin music scene, she knows how to put on a show and her distinctive, full-bodied voice and her commanding stage presence makes Lou Ann a compelling live performer. Born in Fort Worth in 1954, Lou Ann moved to Austin in the mid-70s and hooked up with Kim Wilson and Jimmie Vaughan in the Fabulous Thunderbirds. In 1975, after a spell in WC Clark's Blues Revue, she joined Jimmie's little brother Stevie Ray in Triple Threat, who built up a big reputation on the Austin scene. After three years fronting this outfit and the unreleased 'Nashville' album recorded in someone's bedroom (!), Lou Ann left to begin a solo career, and Stevie Ray took up vocals in Double Trouble.
Lou Ann joined the East-coast jump-blues outfit, Roomful of Blues for a while and her solo venture finally got going when she went to Muscle Shoals Sounds Studios in 1982, where Jerry Wexlerproduced her 'Old Enough' album. It sold well locally, but did not make the national charts. Lou Ann next effort was the self-produced 'Forbidden Tones' in 1986, which was much more pop oriented, containing covers of Beatles and Mink deVille songs. This bid for AOR exposure was not a success, despite Lou Ann's excellent vocals.
Facebook Groups at; Memories of... Dallas, Texas, Football in Texas, Texas Music, Memories From a Texas Window and Dallas History Guild. Come visit!
A Dallas group became an early psychedelic phenomenon called the Thirteenth Floor Elevators led by Roky Erickson. They even featured an electric jug player. Roky later ended up in a nut house and thought he was Jesus Christ. Aaah, the sixties!
No list of Texas musicians would be complete without Archie Bells and the Drells from Houston, Texas where they not only sing but they dance as good as they want. After this song they were never heard from again.
Historians and music lovers fifty years later are still trying to figure out exactly what a Drell is.
