I just happened across this site and read the reviews about this album and in particular the comments about the Dixie Chicks and their song "Some Days You Gotta Dance". I just wanted to say that this song is not only performed by Texans it was written by Troy Johnson who was born in Houston and raised in Katy Texas.
So no matter what you think about the Chicks, this great song should be included on this or any other compilation of Texas music.
Texas Outlaws is a poorly conceived compilation. Consider for a minute that this CD features mostly Texas Country/Americana artists (or whatever you want to label Texas artists who sing something that has roots in traditional country but doesn’t have the high-sheen gloss and soul-less pop spirit that Nashville country has today). Now, “mostly” means “except for the last track”. Let me start there. The hip-hop beats and rhymes of Lil Black’s “Back On The Road” are as out of place here as a Lyle Lovett song would be on Dr. Dre’s next album. The song features Willie Nelson chiming in for the chorus with “On The Road Again”. What was Willie thinking? Maybe they sampled his voice.
On to the country, er Americana; whatever. The high points on this CD are few. Jack Ingram gives a great rendition of the Waylon Jennings classic “Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line”. Ingram could be called “grungy”. Fans of Cross Canadian Ragweed’s version of “Only Daddy…” will like this one. It’s down and dirty hard-drivin’ twang. Cooder Graw’s version of Rodney Crowell’s “Ain’t Living Long Like This” is a classic, cool, straight ahead rocker that deserves every bit of airplay the Texas stations have given it. Max Stalling does justice to Marty Robbins hit “El Paso”. This is one of those songs where if you screw it up, there goes your career. Not so in this case; Stalling will be around for a while to come. Ray Wylie Hubbard’s “Dust Of The Chase” is a good definition of Texas Country. If you don’t get it after hearing this song, you’ll never figure it out.
You get a few other Texas classics to fill the space: Cory Morrow’s “The Preacher”, Pat Green’s live version of Crowell’s “Me and Billy The Kid”, Reckless Kelly’s “Rodeo Man”, and Robert Earl Keen’s “Whenever Kindness Fails”. Then there’s Billy Joe Shaver’s live version of “Georgia On A Fast Train”. Unfortunately, this version does not feature the stellar guitar playing of Shaver’s late son, Eddy.
Roger Creager’s update of Steve Earl’s “Guitar Town” is really not necessary. Creager’s smooth baritone is all glass and no guts. This version has nothing new to offer over Earl’s original. Townes Van Zandt’s live solo version of his own “Pancho and Lefty” is poor quality; no I mean really poor quality. The audio sounds like it went through a crappy mp3 conversion first, or maybe the master copy went through a piss poor A/D converter. The rest of the tunes are forgettable at best. Chances are, you won’t here them on radio, ever.
Texas Outlaws could have been better. Obviously, it’s just a collection of songs, good and bad, thrown together without much thought. Happy listening.
Cooder Graw & Jack Ingram kick ass on this!!!
NATALIE GILMER deserves ALLLLL the credit for the KVET CD! She put the entire thing together! She's wonderful and I'm so glad she's there at KVET supporting all of the Texas Music artist! The album is GREAT.
Great CD - You can tell that a lot of work and planning went into it.
This is 16 of the best acoustic holiday sngs you'll hear. Wait until you hear Tift Merritt sing "I'll be home for Christmas" or Willie sing "Please Come Home for Christmas". If you're a Pat Green fan I bet you haven't heard him sing "Winter Wonderland". And album proceeds are set aside for Global Special Olympics. It really is "very special".
Great, but I got mine at MyTexasMusic.com
What a wonderful collect of gifted artist and songs coming together to help benefit children in public schools. Great idea !!
by the way, I know who Texas Tanner is and he's still upset that his head is just a hatrack and his wife ran off with his dog - maybe it was the other way around. How could this joker act like he represents Texas and criticize a project like this based on his biased opinion about the Dixie Chick's and one song ??? I guess if he could read, he'd have researched more about the Texas Music Project and it's efforts to support Texas artist instead of puking up a mindless comment he heard someone from Nashville say. go home "Nashville Tanner".
