Repeat After Me Kids

My kids are three and five years old and I've taught them a lesson that I think will serve them well for the rest of their lives. It goes like this:

I ask: What's the best kind of music?
They yell: COUNTRY MUSIC!
Then I ask: What's the best kind of country music?
They yell: TEXAS country music!

And we live in Michigan.... So it's kind of hard to figure out how this happened, but who's complaining? Here are three proofs that I'm sending the kiddos in the right direction.

Exhibit 1 - A cautionary tale of Willie Nelson's adventures on the road with drummer Paul English in the early 1970's: Me And Paul (buy).

Exhibit 2 - The title track from Waylon's Jennings' 1973 masterpiece Honky Tonk Heroes, featuring the songs of Billy Joe Shaver: Honky Tonk Heroes (buy). (Check back for more about this album in a future post.)

Exhibit 3 - The biggest hit from The King Of Western Swing: San Antonio Rose (mp3) (buy). (Note: If you are going to own only one Western Swing album--???--the logical choice would be "The Tiffany Transcriptions, Vol. 2," on which this track appears. )

What about alt-country (whatever that is)?

I realize that the site has been REALLY old fashioned lately. Not a bad thing, necessarily, but just in case you want to hear something recorded during your lifetime, check out Psalm 102(buy), Texas alt-country from the band San Saba County off their 2006 release "It's Not The Fall That Hurts."

And, finally, here's some really great "old" Texas alt-country from The Old 97's 1997 album "Wreck Your Life," which is my favorite of their records: Victoria (buy).