Richard Cabesa’s Music Blog

I have absolutely loved Radney Foster’s work going back to his days in the 1980s as part of Foster and Lloyd.  He hasn’t missed a beat as a solo artist either.  The Del Rio, Texas native’s latest release is This World We Live In.  The album’s opener is Drunk On Love and it has the Bob Dylan bluesy sound to it, yet still has the honky tonk sound we’ve come to expect from Foster.  The relation of the power of alcohol and the power of love is interesting.   Very good song, and the line “flying high on a stone cold rush” is awesome. And you gotta love the “been before the porcelain throne” line.  Sarah Buxton singing backup gives it an interesting twist.  Buxton also sings on Sweet and Wild and gives it an added touch.  The song is about the newness of a relationship.  I think everybody likes how new love feels and can relate to this song.  Kindness of Strangers is pure greatness.  The song is a story about a hooker saving a man who has lost it and is at the end of the line.  I find this line, “letting go even though the heartache’s all you trust” to be very powerful.  Foster is such a great song writer, and singing about finding redemption from a hooker, is good stuff.   

Big Idea is a great, upbeat song and is one of the highlights of the album.  This song cracks me up.  The lyrics are Foster at his best.  “Hey darlin’ I wanna make things perfectly clear.  Now if we could put our heads together we could change the world forever”.  haha  How does he come up with this stuff?  To me Half of My Mistakes is clearly the best song on the album.  It’s a ballad about gaining wisdom from your mistakes.  I love the line “half of the good things in my life, came from half of my mistakes.”  Great stuff.  Kim Richey providing background vocals is a nice touch as well.  New Zip Code is so cliche’ but Foster makes it work.  It’s not a highlight of the album by any means, but it’s passable.  It’s actually kinda funny after listening to it a couple of times.

Another ballad is I Won’t Lie To You, with somebody singing background vocals, but I can’t really tell who it is.  I like it though.  The song is about how love can cure all, including the pitfalls of today’s world.  Prove Me Right is currently playing on radio, but really isn’t that great of song, I guess because the opener gives it the feel of a goofy drunk song.  Also, it sounds like a Toby Keith type song, which isn’t really bad, it’s just not Foster.  The song itself is actually about hope in love and believing in it, which is definitely better than how it opens.  I like the song, and it’s a good radio song, but it’s not one of the better songs on the album.  Fools The Dream is right up there with Half of My Mistakes as the best on the album.  The cleverness with which this song is written shows Foster’s greatness as a songwriter.  Most people will be able to relate to this song, as I think almost everybody has been a relationship that you know is destined for failure.  Kim Richey sings backup, which again, is really nice.  One of my favorite lines from any move is “If you want big rewards, then you gotta take big risk” from Summer Catch.  Never Gonna Fly is basically saying the same thing with different words.  The song is co-written by fellow Texas singer/songwriter Jack Ingram, which is definitely a good thing. 

Overall, this album was a bit of a letdown. While it does contain the typical Radney Foster greatness that we’ve come to expect, there are some songs on this collection that make you scratch your head and ask what was he thinking.  It’s a pretty good album, but based on previous Foster albums, I’ve come to expect a lot more.

Rarely is there a time when a star of the Joe Nichols’ magnitude plays a place the size of Cowboy’s Arlington.  But such was the case last Friday night, and as expected, the house was packed.  Nichols came right out of the shoot with Brokenheartsville and continued from there.

Nichols continued playing hit songs, including Size Matters and Cool To Be A Fool.  He also included a song on his most recent CD that has not been released to radio, I’ll Wait For You.  My guess is that this will be the next radio release.  It’s not much of a concert song though, and the audience seemed a bit disinterested.  He followed that up with a dedication to the late Buck Owens.  However, he could have at least sang something we had heard of.  I’m not sure what Buck Owens song that was.  But props to Nichols for mentioning the little known fact that Buck is from Sherman, Texas.

The show picked up a little bit when Nichols broke into some cover songs.  His version of Whiskey River sounded almost as much like Willie Nelson than Willie himself.  A little Hank Jr and David Allan Coe followed.  David Allan Coe music in a Texas honky tonk bar is always a good thing, and a sure bet to get the crowd back into the show.  Once Nichols had his audience back, he kept it the rest of the night.  He followed with The Impossible and What’s A Guy Gotta Do.  The Impossible is really a powerful song and sometimes gets forgotten about when talking about Joe Nichols tunes, but it may be his best to date. 

Bras and panties filled the stage when Nichols performed Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off.  This song is good enough as it is, but what a great live song.  I was hoping to hear a couple of cover songs that Nichols has on his new III CD, Should I Go Home Or Should I Go Crazy (Gene Watson) and My Old Friend The Blues (Steve Earle), but he didn’t do them.  That was my only disappointment of the night. 

I found the show entertaining and I felt Nichols was smooth on stage.  However, a colleague felt the show sucked and that he couldn’t keep his audience.  For the most part I have to disagree, even though, he did lose it a little bit in the middle of the show when he steered off from his own music.  But overall, I felt it was money well spent, and will definitely go see him again.

King Cone and Brandon Bush entertained Saturday afternoon at The Garage in Denton, as part of the Fry Street Fair.  I attended, but really didn’t know what to expect.  I had never heard of this Fry Street Fair.  I had seen King Cone play once before, and Brandon Bush I had never seen. 

I made the trek to Denton to see King Cone play and he didn’t dissappoint.  The thing that I have noticed about King is that his personality overrides whatever flaws that his music may have.  It’s not that the music is bad at all, but it ’s a different mix and it’s sometimes confusing on what he wants his sound to be.  Or perhaps he wants it to be everything to reach a broader audience.  At any rate, he played some newer material that I hadn’t heard before from his new CD.  Go With Me was actually on a previous CD and was redone with a little funk, as he would say.  And my favorite off the new CD Hanging On The Vine.  My favorite King Cone song is Ask Me To Stay, which he played twice, so that in itself made it worth the trip.  Being this was a Fair, bands were rolling in and out, so King only played for an hour, but his audience interaction is that of a seasoned veteran.  He’s obviously comfortable on stage and has a commanding presence that will help him go places in this industry.

Since there was still beer to be drank, I decided to stay and watch Brandon Bush too.  This is not Brandon Bush, the piano player.  This Brandon Bush I honestly had never heard of.  This was an acoustic show and was quite entertaining.  Bush has a good sense of humor and played off that several times in the show.  He played some original music telling stories of high school and college experiences, but maybe relied too much on cover tunes.  However, he did very well on some, including Jason Boland’s My Baby Loves Me When I’m Stoned and Steve Earle’s Copperhead Road, but struck out trying to cover Cross Canadian Ragweed.  Without knowing much about Brandon Bush, I’d say he is in his young 20’s at most, so he has time to work on his craft.  He has the stage presence already, so he has a start on most who would never have the balls to get on stage in the first place.   One word of advice to the young Mr. Bush:  Play your music, and rely less on everybody else’s.

As for the Fry Street Fair.  Wow!  Somebody remind me of this thing when it rolls around next year.  It’s been along time since I saw so many scantily dressed women.  Well, ok, maybe they were girls.  Oh to be 20 years old again.  Until next time, take care everybody.

When Deryl Dodd hits the stage, fans of all kinds show up.  Last Saturday night at Cowboys Arlington was no exception.  Dodd’s voice sounded fresh and as great as ever as he played several of his popular hits and some material from his new CD to be released June 27. 

Deryl’s shows at Cowboys Arlington are always some of his more entertaining shows.  Even Joe Nichols stopped by for this show, coming over from Ft. Worth after his afternoon performance in the stockyards.  Deryl opened the show with one of my favorites, 13MWZ.  Deryl’s crowd covers all ages, genders, and personalities, and undoutedly, some of them don’t even know what 13MWZs are, but the song is still enjoyable to them.  Hit after hit followed, including Pearl Snaps, Love or Something Like It, John Roland Woods, Sundown, and Drinkin’ About You.

Watching a Deryl Dodd show is like watching a Willie Nelson show.  If you’ve been to several artist’s shows, then you know what I’m talking about.  There isn’t a whole lot of idle time on stage and pompous self promotion.  Deryl rolls from one song to the next, just as Willie does.  He did take a few minutes, like he always does, to introduce his band, The Homesick Cowboys.

Deryl tried out some material from his new Full Circle CD, including it’s first release, I’m Not Home Right Now.  The song will be released to radio on April 17, and should be another hit.  It’s a lovesick ballad, obviously written during a low point in Dodd’s life.  It’s a song that I think everybody can relate to you.  You hear Deryl sing this song, and you feel his pain, as it takes your back to a time in your own life when you were at that low point.  And we’ve all been there.  Another song from the new album is actually an older song recycled, It’s Only Cause You’re Lonely.  This song was previously recorded on his 1998 self titled Deryl Dodd CD.  It’s a more upbeat song about being the transitional guy for a girl.  And yes, we’ve all been there too.

Deryl also performed a couple of cover songs.  One being Ricky Skaggs’ Don’t Get Above Your Raisin’.  I’m not a huge Skaggs fan, even though I do like his work, so I may be in the minority on this, but Deryl does this song better.  Another cover was George Strait’s Unwound.  It takes some stones to try to cover George Strait, but Deryl does it very well.

Of course, no Deryl Dodd show would be complete with out fan favorites Things Are Fixin’ To Get Real Good, A Bitter End, and his signature That’s How I Got To Memphis.  There were probably some other songs played, but by the end of the show, the alcohol was kicking in and I just can’t remember.  And the excitement of meeting Joe Nichols clouded my recollection as well.  Once again, look for Full Circle on June 27, and listen for I’m Not Home Right Now on April 17.  You’ll like it.

That’s it for this week.  I’ll be doing another CD review soon, so check back.  And if you have a CD you would like to have reviewed, let me know, and we’ll check it out.  See ya next time.

Growing up in a small town, albeit not so small anymore, it was always pretty cool to have somebody famous from your city.  In Sherman, Texas, we didn’t have many such people.  Our neighbors to the north, Denison, had President Dwight Eisenhower.  Bohnam had Sam Rayburn.  Tiny Tioga had Sam Rayburn’s funeral, as well as staking claim as the birthplace of Gene Autry.  But we had Buck Owens.  The Buckaroo.  Mr. Hee Haw. 

That’s right!  Every week we watched one of the most popular shows in the United States.  And the start of the show was from our hometown.  Sure, not many people knew that.  It was more accepted that he was from Bakersfield, California.  But we knew better.  Hwy 82 in Sherman is even named Buck Owens Highway.  The stars of the show came and went, but Buck was the star among stars.   Grandpa Jones.  Stringbean.  Minnie Pearl.  Junior Samples. 

Guest stars were common as Hee Haw was the place to be.  Roy Acuff, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, George Jones, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings.  You name ‘em.  They were there.  The list of legends goes on.  They all made appearances.  But it was Buck’s show.  There he was each week with his red, white, and blue guitar.  Even George Strait and Alan Jackson could be seen on Hee Haw.  But we still tuned in to see Buck.

The funny thing is that it wasn’t until much later that I realized he was a star singer.  We thought of him as a TV star, not a singer.  But Buck did have twenty number one hits on Billboard’s country music charts.  Several of his songs have been recorded by others, but never like Buck could do them.  I didn’t grow to appreciate Buck’s music until Dwight Yoakam arrived on the scene in the mid 1980’s.  Dwight quickly became one of my favorite country artists.  And when he re-recorded Buck’s hit “Streets of Bakersfield” in 1988 as a duet with Buck, it became Buck’s first #1 hit since the early 1970’s.  That’s really when I became a Buck Owens fan. 

I was in the front row at the Tarrant County Convention Center for a Dwight and Buck concert in 1989 and it was to this day, one of the best shows I have ever witnessed.  Buck was better than advertised.  It’s unfortunate that I didn’t fully understand his greatness until I was twenty years old.  However, it was fortunate that he lived another 17 years after that so that those of us who didn’t know, could understand.

Buck Owens influence on country music is timeless.  And his influence on Texas country music lives on.  I could go on and on about the songs that have Buck’s influence, but one in particular stands out.  Ed Burleson has a song with the lines “I wrote this song myself, and it’s all Buck’ed up.”  That symbolizes Buck’s influence.  Witty, quircky, yet poignant.

That’s Buck Owens, American icon.  Texas treasure.  Sherman’s own.  I was saddened Saturday to hear of his passing.  But I was thankful that it wasn’t 17 years earlier.  I was thankful that I didn’t miss out on the greatness of the Buckaroo. 

God Bless Buck Owens.