from My West Texas on mywesttexas.com

Now that their roots are firmly planted in the red dirt of Texas country music, the guys of the Josh Abbott Band are branching out thanks to the help of a little social networking and a lot of support from the fans.

"I don't know," said band frontman, Josh Abbott. "I guess I would say it was like Facebook that has helped us reach out, but I would also credit just the fact that there are a lot of transplanted Texans."

But what isn't helping their cause, added Abbott, is how the industry decides what music they're going to spin. Even with the odds stacked against them, though, the band's current single, "Oh, Tonight," featuring Kacey Musgraves, is still getting some serious national attention. It's also scoring high with Texas radio as the single hit the No. 1 spot on the Texas Music Chart in February. And according to Abbott, it's the band's most successful single so far.

"You know just trying to tour the national radio scene opposed to just the Texas scene... We know when we put a song on the radio in Texas, it may not necessarily go to number one, but it will more than likely be top 10," said Abbott. "But nationally they really have no reason to play us, I mean we're not on a major label, we don't play pop country and we do a good job playing a lot of shows outside of Texas, but you know we're not a band that tours places like Seattle or Delaware or Florida."

"You know they factor that kind of stuff in when they're playing songs," he added. "You know these radio stations that are national, they have these relationships with the record label people and representatives and radio execs, so when it comes time to play a song and they've only got one or two spots open on the rotation, who are they gonna play, this independent band from Texas, or are they going to play this, you know, this national major label band that has radio reps that come in three times a year and take them to a nice dinner. I mean I'm serious, that's how it works."

And as social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace are helping to level the playing field for the Josh Abbott Band, so may internet radio sites such as Pandora.

Instead of relying on a band's popularity or a record label's marketing muscle, the web-based radio service uses a complicated formula known as the Music Genome Project to predict what the listener will enjoy. Sites like Pandora are becoming the radio waves of the future.

"We've had so many people tell us through Facebook and live shows that a lot of out-of-state people get exposed to like Pat Green or Randy Rogers and then listen to Pandora and a Josh Abbott song will come on. I think Pandora is doing wonders for a lot of artist's music," said Abbott.

"Our music can be linked to like 60 other bands through Pandora stations and that gives us a lot more exposure," he added. "I don't think that the radio industry in itself will ever go away, but it is a dying industry because you've got satellite radio and now you've got Pandora. There are so many other options that you have in your car to listen to and I think you have to embrace that instead of fight it."

(read full story on mywesttexas.com)