Houston Marchman is as Texas country as they come. That means he's lived it and he's got the poetry and the musicianship to tell it in a song -- a song that takes you with him to the heart of his experience. A lot of his growing up years were spent on his father's ranch in Meridian, Texas, and it was there that he soaked up the sounds, sights, and stories of ranch hands, small - town folk, rodeo riders, truckers, Mexicans, sweethearts, and broken hearts that come with the territory. By the time he was 16 his songs began to emerge, and he has been writing and singing ever since. One of his first professional gigs was performing in a wild west show -- as a bronc rider and singer. While touring Japan, Houston gathered enough material for road and rodeo songs to last a lifetime. Marchman followed up his rodeoing with 6 years in Nashville, writing and performing, and scraping by. The title song of his first CD, VietNashville, pretty much tells that story, like Steve Earle, Robert Earl Keen, Joe Ely, Lucinda Williams, and plenty of other talented singer - song writers, Marchman just doesn't fit into the Nashville country music mold. His sound is unapologetically "Texan." Now that he is back where he belongs, Marchman is performing all over north Texas backed by a hot group of players called the Contraband. The result is a hybrid sound that says something different in a world of formula, commercially driven music. This band delivers country music that packs the punch of rock, while it carries on the tradition of Texas Folk, conjunto, polka, and blues.