During the short time that I lived in Austin, Texas, I found a huge number of talented songwriters and performers. Many of them I discovered after hearing them on some of the many great radio programs at KUT, the station at the University of Texas. They have one announcer who does a program of nothing but Brazilian music on Friday afternoon, another guy who does a '50's doo-wop show, and the incredible musical programming of John Aielli and his program Eklektikos. Aieilli has been doing his panorama of music mornings for decades, featuring everything from opera to punk rock. He also has live music at times in the studio. It's a great show and you can tune it in on the Internet.
One of the performers I first heard in Texas and learned to love was Jimmie Dale Gilmore. He was born in Amarillo, grew up in Lubbock, the home of Buddy Holly. Gilmore's early influence was Hank Williams. He's known for saying "Here's another one of my songs. Hank Williams just happened to write it."
Jimmie has one of the most unique voices I've heard in popular music. Give a listen as he joins Nancy Griffith on stage.
Very nice. I'm not a big C&W fan. but grew up with Hank Williams, Hank Snow and Jimmy Rogers, etc,. I love those guys.
ReplyDeleteJimmie and Nancy have a good sound.
ReplyDeleteThat would play nicely in Bakersfield as well.
Nice - I like it!
ReplyDeleteSteve, I'm not sure if I'd even call Gilmore C&W. It's more the New Country music which has a bit of a rock tinge sometimes. I don't know, really.
ReplyDeleteTom, I've loved that strange west Texas twang Gilmore has ever since I first heard it. I once emailed the producer of Austin City Limits and suggested he might want to put together a program of Jimmy and Iris DeMent. He thought it had good possibilities. There is a video on You Tube of them singing together but you can barely hear Iris.
Dana, me too!
I just spent some great time listening to the country music you present this morning. So much music comes from Austin and that's the place where I started appreciate it so much...
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