1. Six Shiny Strings
2. Cruel to You
3. I Should Have Called
4. I'm Here With You
5. El Western Motel
6. So Long, I Love You
7. Blues for the Big Highway
8. Hat Full of Trouble
9. Silver Hair and Silver Wings
10. That's What They Say
11. We're All in This Together
12. Hello, I'm in Old Country Song
I’ve discovered that over the years that, for me at least, songwriting is much like prayer. With great earnestness you offer up your heart only to be plagued by those nagging doubts that no one out there is listening. That you are talking to the sky, or in my case, howling at the moon. I didn’t get into this game until halftime and now we are somewhere in the fourth quarter. So in the spirit on song and prayer I let fly this Hail Mary!
Chris Wall, Driftwood, Texas, October 2012
1.The Poet is Not in Today
2. Old Broken Record
3. An Outlaw's Blues
4. Just Another Place
5. Hank Williams' Cadillac
6. Still in the Dark
7. Five Piece Band
8. Raining in Atlanta
9. I Just Got Used to Lovin' You
10. Ten Cents on the Dollar
11. The Jagged Edge
12. Love is Just a Place
13. Somewhere Between Forty and Fallin' Apart
14. Color it Blue
15. Canadian Rockies
I guess my odyssey began on a front porch in Montana many miles ago, listening to Uncle Bill's old Zenith. It was here I first heard the siren's song: country, blues and opera on Saturday, all mixed up with the whine of the big rigs on the four lane headed to Billings, and the moan of the Burlington Northern on the rail going west. It all conspired to lure me onto the lost highway, which I was amazed to find ran right in front of our house. I take a look across my back fence now on down the khaki main street of my dusty old one bar town and I notice the past has become a very distant country, and old loves are just another place you've been.
Chris Wall, Driftwood, Texas, October 2002
1.Turns To Tears
2. Three Across
3. God's Own Jukebox
4. Tainted Angel
5. I Never Got Over Losing You
6. Empty Seat Beside Me
7. Big Blue Teardrops
8. Waltz To Cheyenne
9. Half Of What Killed Elvis
10. No Sweat
11. Dylan Montana's Last Ride
I've always had this sound in my head. It's part starched shirts, Black Gold Resistols, and pressed Wranglers, and part ball caps and Levis with holes in the knees. I've also always thought that a great country song was a story set somewhere between exuberance and desperation. Somewhere between the hopeful, eager breaths of a young musician and the weary sigh of the veteran road warrior getting on that bus to face one more highway.
I was approaching (though not dangerously close to) maturity when Reckless Kelly moved to Austin in the Spring of 1997. Sometime later I took a brief break from the road and we began doing a great deal of hangin' and pickin' together. Cody and Willy and I go way back to when they were just kids. We are connected at the musical hip and darn near family. Jay, Shifty, and Casey - well, we just hit it off from the start. Given all this, the collaboration seemed a natural.
So, think of these tunes as "torch songs," some of them are torches carried, some of them are torches passed (past? gee, I'll take homophones for a thousand, Alex!) Some are used to light the way, and some... hell, some are just used to burn down the honky tonks.
Chris Wall, Austin, Texas, July 1998
1.I Feel Like Singing Along
2. Texas Time
3. Wild Bill and the Montana Kid
3. Big In the Heart
4. Runaway Cadillac
5. Gal From San Antone
6. Miles of Rodeo
7. Damn Good Time
8. Independence Day
9. Makin' the Rounds
10. The Lines on my Forehead
11. Ship Me Back to Texas
12. 33 Reasons to Say Goodbye
Being pegged as a regional artist isn't really all that bad. You read that you have a cult following and only wish you had a bigger cult. Somewhere between The Grateful Dead and the Rev. Moon, perhaps. But, everyone is regional in some sense, and mine is the region of the Lone Star.
Since I was last heard from in '94, I've felt a bit like those ghost writers of song and story. Doomed to chase some wild mustang of a dream along some endless highway. The course, if run correctly, is only the width of one man's shoulders and if you raise up even once to find an approving eye from a critic or some mass public feeding frenzy at the trough, you will run her in the ditch for sure. In my effort to keep it between the lines (eerily similar to painting yourself in a corner, by the way), I have found fertile ground here in Texas. It's where the ghosts and the stories live. They haunt these old dancehalls and they can be found frolicking on any Saturday night. The trick is to catch a few, like fireflies in a jar, and light up the night. At Gruene we made a few sparks fly, come on in and listen.
Chris Wall, Austin, Texas, October 1996
1.Leanna
2. Way Out West
3. Cowboy Nation
4. I Feel Like Hank Williams Tonight
5. Let 'er Buck
6. My Favorite Lies
7. Roadhouse Whiskey
8. The End of the Rainbow Inn
9. Cold Blue Highway
10. The Bouncer at the Cowboy Bar
11. My Old Martin Guitar
12. I Drink, Therefore I Am
A friend sent me snapshots from the not-too distant past. An old '66 Flexible tour bus idling in front of the Outlaw Motel. Rodeo cowboys seated on the top rail with the Crazy Mountains as a backdrop. Wind blowin' snow off the Tetons on the way back from Du Bois, Wyoming. The crowd dancing at the Cowboy Bar. Finally, Bonnie and me between the barn and the main house on the ranch in Montana.
I swear these snapshots are no clearer than my memories of these moments. They lack only dimension, and they don't smell like whiskey on a hardwood floor. But strangely, they do buzz like neon and they sting my eyes like thick blue smoke.
I've come a far piece since then. Tonight I write to you from a farm house in Round Top, Texas. It is a well known fact that, after a few beers, I get the urge to sum things up, whether it be the pennant race or the state of the republic. Tonight, my friends, is nothing so very different.
This album, like my life, is loosely based on a true story. I never took notes in the strictest sense of the word, but then again, I never did anything in the strictest sense of the word. What I have done is sift through the crumpled napkins scribbled with numbers and what seemed -at the time- to be great ideas. From there I've tried to take you into the territory I love.
It is the Cowboy Nation.
Chris Wall, Austin, Texas, February 1994
1.Hangin' Out
2. Fine Line
3. Once Before I Go
4. Boots
5. No Sweat
6. Faded Blue
7. Rodeo Cowboy
8. I'll Take the Whiskey (You Take the Wheel)
9. Better Things To Do
10. I'm Not Drinking Anymore
Back in '87, I was pouring drinks for folks in Jackson Hole, WY. Nowadays I'm serving up something a little different. Same bars, better lighting. Since I first set foot onstage, courtesy of the legendary Pinto Bennett and his Famous Motel Cowboys, I've logged a lot of miles on this honky-tonk highway.
The names have been changed, despite the fact the no one was really innocent. But the feelings are all honest, and I can live with that quite nicely, thank you. Most of the feelings were inspired by the great people whose paths I have had the good fortune to cross. I owe them my thanks.
And thank you too, for taking the time to listen. Right now you're browsing through these notes. Me, I'm probably somewhere between Austin and Bozeman, blowing down the road and looking for a neon sign. If you see me coming, give me a wave. Better yet, flag me down and say hello.
Has It Really Been Thirteen Years Since I Wrote These Lines? Wow! Well I stand by every word and by these songs which are presented in their original form. No retouching. This release is dedicated to Marge Mueller, who passed away July 25, 2004. I first met Marge the day she popped up behind the bar at Luckenbach and became part of this cover. We became fast friends after that. She will be missed...
Chris Wall, Driftwood, Texas, December 2004
1.Honky Tonk Heart
2. Rodeo Wind
3. The Empty Seat Beside Me
4. Faithfully
5. Trashy Women
6. Sure is Smokey in Here
7. He Lives My Dream
8. I Wish John Stetson Made a Heart
9. Entourage
10. Something to Shoot
Some serious water has flowed under the proverbial bridge since this recording was first released in 1990. My thanks go to the friends and fans that are still with us, those who aren't, and those we have just come to know. Although we've changed greatly since then these recordings haven't. Nothing has been re-anythinged. We stand by what we did then. Pure and simple.
Chris Wall, Driftwood, Texas, February 2004
1. Tuning Up
2. The Poet is Not in Today
3. So Long, I Love You
4. Turns to Tears
5. Canadian Rockies
6. Still in the Dark
7.Somewhere Between Forty and Fallin’ Apart
8. The Truth of the Matter… Band Intros
9. Pawn Shop Guitars
10. Ten Cents on the Dollar
11. Just Another Place
12. Wild Bill and the Montana Kid
13. White Lines and Road Signs
14. Oh Shut Up
These songs were recorded live in a farmhouse in Round Top, Texas, the same weekend as the Any Saturday Night in Texas, live at Gruene Hall record. Some were tweaked and polished and showed up on Just Another Place, but the rest have been sitting in a box in the closet. Listening to the original raw tracks reminded me of all our drives across Texas and out West, stopping at dance halls and random bars for a beer and listening to the bands. Sometimes we’d come across the most incredible musicians and stay for a few hours. They don’t get much better than the ones playing on here. With minimal editing, we tried to capture that same feeling for you. So grab a beer and settle in for a listen.
Laurie Coffin, Driftwood, Texas, October 2024