This Is Book's Music

Lone Star Lowlands is a new installment in The Numero Group‘s Local Customs album series. If the title isn’t a giveaway, Lone Star Lowlands takes a look at the rock’n'roll scene of Beaumont, Texas, specifically the recordings that were made at Lowlands Recording Studio. In the late 60′s/early 70′s, Texas became known for not only a wealth of country music, but also a good amount of blues rock and country rock, many of which continue to inspire musicians and fans alike many decades later.

If you’re someone who enjoys music by Delaney & Bonnie, Cold Blood, Smith, and ZZ Top, you will find a lot to love and absorb from this album. Had these tracks been released as intended, they could have been receiving airplay today on classic rock radio stations. Songs like “She’s My Daughter” by Sassy, “I Still Remember” by Linda Crow, and “Benashaw Glen” by Bobby Welch shows a deep love for friends and family, and one another, when all you needed in life was some moonshine, maybe some weed, and electricity to plug your guitars in. When I used to host a radio show in high school called The Classic Cafe, this was the kind of music I loved because it was the music I was raised on, as if the lyrics, singing, and musicianship offered hints of the excitement of being an adult. “Yellow River” by Welch could be something Poco could have recorded for themselves, and while “It Makes You Feel So Bad” by Insight Out lacks major label production, the rhythm section will make you feel it in the heart and the piano melody is right out of The Band songbook.

Most of the songs here are direct and to the point, most of them have hit status but then there’s Boot Hill‘s “No Control”, the longest song here clocking in at 6:17. It’s a psychedelic blues complete with Jethro Tull/Osanna-style flute solo and guitars that may make you look and see if this was recorded in Texas or Detroit/Flint, Michigan, as the heaviness can be compared to Grand Funk/The Stoogers. The vocalist lets out a falsetto howl that doesn’t quite reach the mountains as Robert Plant or Ronnie James Dio could do so well, but sometimes the limitations help make the songs what they are. In other words, they gave a lot of effort in making these songs great, and that speaks volumes.

This style of downhome blues/country rock was widespread, dominating parts of the Australian rock scene (leading to a lot of great music, much of which can be found in surf movies of the early 1970′s) and throughout Central and South America. It may have been American influenced, but it was a sound people loved because it was felt. It was an emotional music, one that still lives on in varying scenes (i.e. jambands) but Local Customs: Lone Star Lowlands is a time capsule of what was when it was alive and vibrant. The dreams of these musicians were as high as some of their substances made them, and if realistic freedom could not be found, musical freedom was always there and this is very much the sound of freedom, Texas style.

(Local Customs: Lone Star Lowlands will be released on July 13th.)