from The Llano News on llanonews.com

Performing songwriter Mike Blakely, of Buchanan Dam, TX, was honored recently with a tile star bearing his name on the South Texas Walk of Fame in Corpus Christi.

Blakely enjoys a loyal following in Texas, where he typically plays three shows a week. His songs tend toward country and western but also feature a variety of other styles.

Other honorees on the Walk of Fame this year were Terri Hendrix, Agapito Zuniga, Michael O’Connor, Ponty Bone and Geronimo Trevino.

Blakely has released 10 CDs in the last 20 years, and another, titled Homemade Serenade, will be out by September.

A Wharton, Texas, native, Blakely is also a novelist. He has written 16 books to date, the most recent a collaboration with Willie Nelson.

As a songwriter, he won the first-ever Spur Award for songwriting, granted by Western Writers of America, with his epic western song “The Last, Wild, White Buffalo” from his 2008 CD The Rarest of the Breed. The same CD was nominated for album of the year in the 2009 Texas Music Awards. He was a nominee in 2008, along with john Arthur martinez, for Vocal Duo or Group of the Year in the Texas Music Awards. Blakely and his five-piece band, The Whiskey Traders, received the “Vocal Group of the Year” award for 2005 at the Texas Music Awards.

(read full story on llanonews.com)