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.