Palo Duro Records

Our good friend Jim Stratton warmed our hearts with a special Palo Duro broadcast from the chilly shores of Anchorage Alaska:

Trent Summar (Horseshoes & Hand Grenades), She Knows What To Do

Eleven Hundred Spring (Bandwagon), If I Was A Candle

Walt Wilkins (Diamonds In The Sun), Trains I Missed

Walt Wilkins (Luckenbach! Compadres!), Little Bird

The Derailers (Under The Influence Of Buck), I’ve Got A Tiger By The Tail, Foolin’ Around, Sam’s Place, Love’s Gonna Live Here

Lost Gonzo Band (Luckenbach! Compadres!), Getting By

Lost Immigrants (Waiting On Judgement Day), Judgement Day

Jim Stratton: sharing Texas Music in Alaska!

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Check it out!  We’ve posted a huge selection of our photos from live events, video shoots, etc. to flickr.  You can also subscribe to our RSS photostream if you like to keep track of the latest/greatest.

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By Jerome Clark, Rambles.NET

If I were asked “What I Like About Texas” — the title of one of the songs on this disc — my list would consist mostly of the names of Texas musicians. Texas’s cultural and political legacy may be … um … open for discussion, but no one would dispute the self-evident proposition that the Lone Star State has nourished an impressive number of outstanding artists in just about every genre you can think of.

One that most people think of immediately, of course, is country music: Bob Wills, Milton Brown, Lefty Frizzell, George Jones, Ray Price, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Bush, George Strait, Dixie Chicks — just a few names that pop off the top of my head. Even Jimmie Rodgers, the Mississippi blue yodeler often asserted to be the founder of the genre, lived in Texas for a while.
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Luckenbach Texas, is a tiny hamlet in the Texas hill Country west of Austin. It would be little known except for a couple of warm nights in 1973 when Jerry Jeff Walker and the Lost Gonzo Band set up shop in the Luckenbach Dance Hall and recorded one of the most influential recordings of Texas music ever made. The live set collected a bunch of Jerry Jeff ’s songs along with tracks from some new songwriters such Guy Clark, Michael Murphy and Ray Wylie Hubbard. It’s probably best known as the source of “London Homesick Blues,” the theme for Austin City Limits.

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By Mary Jane Farmer, Herald Democrat

“Outlaw Country,” or “Texas Outlaw,” or “Cosmic Cowboy” music hit the 1970s like a boulder, with its arrangements that were at once fun, freeing, and danceable. It changed country music forever, providing a spot for more imagination, more personalization, more variety in what had previously been a formula-only genre. Following the progression of Texas Outlaw Country Cosmic Cowboy music forward, one finds it’s now called “Texas Music” if in Texas or “Americana” if one is outside the Lone Star State.

Willie, Waylon, Kris, each a Texan working out of Nashville, had considerable help from Austin, Texas, pickers, including the New York transplanted and self-redefined Jerry Jeff Walker, in launching the movement. “Viva Terlingua!” may or may not have been Walker’s first album, that’s immaterial. But it burst upon the music world like a whirling dervish. The whole album was recorded in the Luckenbach, Texas, famous dance hall. In January 2006, Palo Duro Records brought together a collection of today’s finest singers, songwriters, and musicians in Luckenbach and re-recorded all nine of the songs on “Viva Terlingua!,” then laid down several more tracks. Originally, Palo Duro Records called the new project “Viva Terlingua! Nuevo!” and sent it out into the world in October. It was only a short time later that Walker, dba Groper Music, filed suit against Palo Duro Records. The two groups reached a settlement, but not until all the CDs in retail stores had been sent back to the record company. Palo Duro reworked the cover with the new name, “Luckenbach Compadres!,” and it’s now being reshipped to retailers everywhere.

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Tex-centric label Palo Duro Records today re-launches with a new name its chart-climbing live recording of Texas music from a tiny Texas town, LUCKENBACH! COMPADRES! (SONGS OF LUCKENBACH TEXAS). The CD is expected to return to retail shelves in the next several weeks.

The album’s name change, from VIVA! TERLINGUA! NUEVO! released by Palo Duro Records in October 2006, is the result of the resolution of a lawsuit filed by Jerry Jeff Walker dba Groper Music against Palo Duro Records. The renamed LUCKENBACH! COMPADRES! will return to retail stores in the next several weeks and will be available through all online music services including iTunes, Sony Connect, Napster and Rhapsody.

Over two nights in January 2006, Palo Duro Records and the Town of Luckenbach celebrated Luckenbach’s musical history by recording live performances of 14 songs from an era that inspired musicians, songwriters and storytellers such as Gary P. Nunn, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Guy Clark, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, whose “Luckenbach Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)” touched millions of people around the world.

Texas artists performing “Up Against the Wall (Redneck Mother),” “London Homesick Blues,” “Sangria Wine,” “Gettin’ By,” “What I Like About Texas,” “Desperados Waiting for a Train” and more were Jimmy LaFave, Cory Morrow, john Arthur martinez, Gary P. Nunn, Two Tons of Steel, Ed Burleson, Brian Burns, The McKay Brothers, Morrison-Williams, Walt Wilkins, Tommy Alverson, The Derailers and members of the original Lost Gonzo Band.

LUCKENBACH! COMPADRES!, co-produced by Walt Wilkins and Tommy Alverson, is the first release in the Palo Duro Records Luckenbach Texas Music Series. Additional live recordings at the historical venue are planned, with the second installment to be announced in the next several weeks.

The mission of Palo Duro Records (“Country Music, Texas Spirit”) is to release the best of Texas-made music in a way that reflects the authenticity of its artists. The label is also home to the notable brands Shiner Records, Luckenbach Texas, and the Texas Unplugged Music Series.

For more information, visit www.palodurorecords.com and www.luckenbachtexas.com.

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