What a great show Larry Joe Taylor and band put on at the 8.0 in Fort Worthtonight.

Since the 8.0 started charging cover (Last year?) it has kept the crowd to the perfect size and mixture of ages.
Last week for Deryl Dodd (Great show too) I noticed that it was the right mix of age groups, genre's of people and styles, this week was no exception.

Mark Fishback was his Rockstar self, Joe Forlina slayed that gutiar, and not sure who was on the drums but he was a near-Zack experince.

It was great to see and visit with some really great friends.

Hasta LaVista amigos, have fun in Isla.

I was fortunate enough to actually be come friends with the great entertainer Rusty Wier, best known for the song "Don't it make you wanna dance" from the Urban Cowboy movie but known about Texas as a hell of a songwriter, musician and entertainer.

I followed Rusty in the original Cosmic Cowboy scare back in 1974, ran into him again in the 80's, then trough Larry Joe got to really know him and spend time with him in the 2000's.

Rusty passed from this life on October 9th, 2009. One year to the day I would lose my mom on October 9th.

Some of the best Comments I heard after Rusty's passing:
There were Performers, There were Songwriters, there were Entertainers. Then there was Rusty Wier ~ Zack Taylor
One fan or 20,000. Same show every time. ~ Andy Tarrant (Rusty's long time bass player)

Larry Joe was hit really hard by the loss of his good friend Rusty.
He asked me to do a photo shoot at Sunrise in Port Aransas to commemorate Rusty's song "Sunrise in Port A".

Larry wrote and recorded this song in a Live DVD and raised funds to have a sculpture made of Rusty that is ever prominent at Melody Mountain music events and has been loaned to places such as the Saxon Pup in Austin where Rusty held forth weekly for years.
I scoured the sources I had for images of Rusty in most all stages of his career, laid the with Larry's song and this is what I got.

I hope you enjoy.

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Pretty damn excited about the new place being built in my Work town Granbury.

The Rio Brazos Music Hall is becoming a reality and getting a lot of buzz.
Rio Brazos will be located in Granbury, just a short drive from Dallas/Ft. Worth:
6611 Glen Rose Highway
Granbury, TX 76048

They are still in the construction process but the web site hints as to the acts they will book such as Ray Wylie, Davin James, Brandon Ryder, Teri Hendrix, Susan Gibson and many more.

There will be a restaurant and cantina, RV and camping, an outdoors concert area and an indoors Dance Hall ala Gruene or Luckenbach.

Bring it on Rio Brazos, North Texas has been waiting for something like you!

If you have not heard of them yet you might want to head over to www.blackberrysmoke.com and check these Atlanta boys out.

They have the look, the presence and the sound to big a pretty big deal.

My favorite song is "Good one coming on".

2 6-packs of Shiner
99 cent butane lighter
Lucky Strikes and a fifth of Patrón
Ice down that Igloo cooler
Tank of gas that outta do her
I can feel a good one coming on

Throw on Ray Wiley Hubbard
Sing along to Redneck Mother;
Any blues I had before are gone
Another working week is over
No chance of staying sober
I can feel a good one coming on

Thanks to Keith for the heads up on these guys!

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I had a FANTASTIC time at the Fort Worth Weekly Annual Music Awards Sunday.

Great bands, favorite venues, all with in walking distance and good friends to boot.
There is a lot of really good talent in the 817 that's for sure.

Hit the 8.0 link to read more about the event.

The 8.0 Bar in Downtown Fort Worth Sundance Square has been doing Free Summer shows sponsored by 95.5 The Ranch for a few years now, here are a few I am excited about and expect to be at:

Wednesday July 6, 2011 95.9 The Ranch and 8.0's bring you Daryll Dodd!

Wednesday July 13, 2011 95.9 The Ranch and 8.0's bring you Larry Joe Taylor!

TEXAS MUSIC AND LJT

(Paul Koonsman, Tarleton Alumni J-TAC, Summer 2000)

Motor homes, camper trailers, tents, trucks, buses, cars, vendor booths, flags, grandpas, grandmas, grandkids, teenagers, cowboys, bikers, frat-rats, co-eds, doctors, lawyers, professors, campfires, chili, beans, Bar-B-Q and music...music...music all thrown together in a boiling Texacana burgoo. Everything from pearly white "never seen the sun" necks to sun-scorched, tank-topped, "my mama calls me ‘Sonny’ but you can call me ‘Bubba’" brew-blooded rednecks. Nawww.....this is not a modern day Grapes of Wrath reunion; it’s Larry Joe Taylor’s Texas Music Festival and Chili Cook-off. Eight thousand people, 25 acts and 28 hours of music thrown together in a three-day happening down in the Bosque bottoms at Meridian, Texas.

What is this "Texas Music"??? Is it country?...well, kinda, how about rock...a little, blues...yeah, some of that, and some folk too. Oh, and I nearly forgot, a little calypso and reggae and some that you’ll just have to call coastal. Written by Texans, about Texas places, Texas people, Texas happenings, Texas thinking, Texas food, Texas hospitality, Texas pride, Texas history and anything else Texas. Does this happen anywhere else? Nope...just in Texas. You won’t find it in Texas Stadium, the Astrodome, the Alamo Dome or the major indoor arenas with all the fireworks, special effects and all the glitz. You will find it in the better beer joints, the worst beer joints, hamburger joints, dance halls, river bottoms, on flatbed trailers, around campfires and in someone’s living room...and you will always find it live.

Texas Coast always beckons musician
By DAVE THOMAS
News Editor
1/20/00

Take a guy who grew up in Brownwood, has traveled across the globe and is living near Stephenville and ask him ``Where do you wish you were right now?''

And if that guy is Larry Joe Taylor, he'll have an answer for you pretty quickly.

``If I could be anywhere, I'd probably be down in Port Aransas right now, maybe sitting on the back deck at Shorty's,'' he said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. ``It's pretty nice weather.''

Taylor, who will be performing his ``Coastal & Western'' style of music at Blaine's Pub on Friday and Saturday, said growing up in Brownwood was ``pretty typical West Texas.''

``There was a lot of football and, uh, that's about it,'' he said.

But the Texas coast is different.

``Well, the coast is kinda like the mountains... there's something kinda magical and scary about both of them,'' he said. ``I like going to the ocean. It's huge, you know, there's just a magic there.''

A couple of Taylor's songs about magical days on the coast are the Gary P. Nunn hits ``Why Don't You Meet Me Down in Corpus'' and ``My Kind of Day on Padre.'' (In fact he wrote or co-wrote another three songs - ``Roadtrip,'' ``Corona Con Lima'' and ``Terlingua Sky'' - that also appeared on Nunn's greatest hits album.)

After hearing Taylor's odes to the ocean life, you might think he hasn't ever had a bad day on the coast. And you'd be right.

``The worst day on the coast is the day you gotta leave,'' he laughed. ``I don't think I've ever really had a bad day down there.''

To balance out the coastal living, Taylor takes to the mountains as well. It could be the sheer size and beauty of the Rockies, or the desolation of the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend.

``We used to go out and do the world championship chili cookoff (in Terlingua) in November and play around the campfires late at night and camp out there,'' he said. ``I don't know if you've been out there, but in the Big Bend area there's probably more stars in the sky than anywhere else.''