Here’s the methodology Lomax and Gray used in making their selections. As this is about John Nova, I am omitting Gray’s comments while indicating hi selections.
“The songs were selected using several criteria. First, they're “Houston-ness” by which we mean an indelible tie to the Bayou City. Songs composed by Houstonians are all eligible though natives and long-term resident scored higher than transients. For example, two-thirds of the principal members of the Geto Boys were born and raised here and remain in the city, while Willie Nelson spent three short though creatively productive years living in Pasadena. Thus, the Geto Boys are more Houston than Willie.
Other ways to qualify include being signed to a Houston label (The Thirteenth Floor Elevators for example), if the song is about Houston no matter where the artist cames from, or if the song was recorded here. If a song combines several factors, it obviously scores higher in Houston-ness than those with fewer connections.
As for the aesthetics, this was not strictly a popularity contest of course; it isn’t merely based on what Houston songs sold the best. It also had to be both a great tune and at least somewhat historically important, And finally, to make the Top 20, a song must be at least five years old. True classics need at least a little time to prove themselves as such.
\#20 “Before the Next Teardrop Falls” ** Freddy Fender ** 1974
About ten years ago Sonny Landreth told me the story of how Huey Meaux and Freddy Fender resurrected each other’s career. Landreth was then living at Meaux’s Sugar Hill studios, sleeping on a pool table and cutting some sessions that wouldn’t come out for more than 20 years. the early ‘70s had not been a particularly terrible period for Meaux or Fender - most of the Crazy Cajun’s Gold records were behind him and Fender’s status as the Mexican Elvis was one stretch in the army another in Louisiana’s notorious Angola prison behind him.
According to Landreth, Meaux was working late one night when Fender burst in the door, guitar strapped to his back. , a jug of tequila in one hand, and a bag of psychedelic mushrooms in the other. and all Meaux could do was wonder, “What the Hell am I going to do with Freddy Fender?” What the two ended up doing was creating two of the most enduring classics of Gulf Coast music the pop Top-10 hit, “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” and the chart-topping “Before the Next Teardrop Falls”> The latter had been a minor country hit for Charley Pride in 1968 and according to Meaux, it almost met the same fate. In 1989. He told The Houston Chronicle that he launched the record with a $5,00 bank loank loan.And what n unlikely hit it wasThe Fats Domino-infused swamp popped been all b ut dead since it’s brief 1950s heyday and silent voiced Mexican guys from the Valley like Fender were never first and foremost among its stars. A record like this could only be cut in Houston.
#19.I Just Dropped in (To see what Condition My Condition Was In)”** Kenny Rogers and the First Edition **1967A Chris Gray selection
#18 Midnight Special ** Lead Belly ** 1937
#17. Killing Time **Clint Black** 1989
A Chris Gray selection
#16.White Freightliner Blues ** Townes Van Zandt ** 1977
Release of 1973 recording
“It’s Bad News from Houston half my friends are dying. White Freightliner won’t you steal away my mind”.
Is there a better line about Houston in any song? And who among us has not felt that way at some point?
Others who evidently can relate include one-time Houstonians Billy Joe Shaver and Steve Earle, as well as Jimmie Dale Gilmore, New Grass Revival, Bobby Bare, J.D. Crowe and th New South and even the String Cheese Incident, all of who have recorded the song.
For rhis list we selected the version Van Zandt recorded in 1973 at the late, great old Quarter bar which still stand down by the courthouse. It’s now a law office. Though the studio version was recorded in 1984 it did not surface until 1993’s The Nashville Sessions and even when it came out it did nothing to diminish the definitiveness of the live recording, produced by Earl Willis. The enthusiasm of the crowd, hand clapping along and the way Van Zandt’s falsetto almost crees out of control when he sings the Bad news from Houston lines see to that.
15. Guyana Punch** The Judys ** 1981
The pride of Pearland, The Judy’s carried the banner for Houston punk/new-save scene in the early ‘60s and “Guyana Punch” was their show- stopper. Even today, it sounds as snotty, fresh, danceable, and eternal as ever. And austere – aside from backing vocals, the music is comprised of nothing more than bass, drums and singer David Benn’s quintessentially bratty voice.
What’s more it remains hard to believe that a guy in his teens could write with such mature black humor and a well-developed sense of enigma. He took as his inspiration one of the more bizarre events of his childhood – the religiously inspired mass suicide of more tha 1,000 followers of cult leader Jim Jones in Guyana – and turn it into a bleakly comic post-punk masterpiece. (Other grist for Bean’s twisted mill inicluded killers such as Gary Gilmore and the son of Sam, girls and TV).
The Judy’s almost made it. They did open for likeminded contemporaries like Talking Heads, The B-52s and even conquering Houston, Dallas and Austin along the way and seemed singularly poised to break nationally. It didn’t happen, in no small part through lack of interest from the band members themselves. The band wasn’t joking when they named their label Wasted Talent.
#14. “Bootylicious”**Destiny’s Child **2001
A Chis Gray Selection
#13. Treat Her Right ** Roy Head & The Traits ** 1965
A Chris Gray Selection
#12. “Merry Christmas From the Family **Robert Earl Keen**1994
For the purposes of a Houston list, this one edges out the more ramous “The Road Goes On Forever”. There’s something about Keen’s droll description of Christmas that seems ineffably H-Town. There’s the incessant trips to the Stop ‘n’ Go(lyrics now need to be change to Valero but still. .) . ), the relatives, from the chain-smoking new wife who talks all about AA to electrically competent David to Fran and Rita, the mystery gin from Harlingen, and the drinking – lots and lots of it, cut with plenty of football on TV. There’s no snow save for the fake stuff on shelves at the Quik-Pak store and nobody knows what to think of the Mexican boyfriend little sister brought to dinner until he sings “Feliz Navidad”.
It’s easily the greatest Texas Christmas song ever written but it transcends the season and stands as a great slice of-life depiction of suburban. Texas and handling stress as only they can -by stocking up at Spec’s Liquor early and often and then filling in on accessories like celery and lemons as needed later.
#11. “Damn it feels Good to Be a Gangsta” **The Geto Boys **1992
A Chris Gray Selection
#10. “You’re Gonna Miss Me ** Thirteenth Floor Elevators **1966
A Chris Gray Selection
#9. Whiskey River ** Johnny Bush/Willie Nelson** 1972/1973
A Chris Gray selection
#8. “Please Send Me Someone To Love **Esther Phillips ** 1970
Percy Mayfield, “The poet laureate of the blues” was born in Louisiana and died in California but he spent his formative years in Houston. Mayfield penned dozens of great songs, most notably “Hit the Road, Jack” for Ray Charles – but none surpassed “Please Send Me Someone to Love”, one of the most covered blues/R&B songs of all time. Everyone from Count Basie and Etta James to Fiona Apple and Jeff Buckley has taken a crack at it.
In words direct and simple as a child’s Christmas prayer, Mayfield begs a higher power to send love to all: “Heaven please send to all mankind, unsending and peace of mind, and it it’s not asking too much, please send me someone to love”. The melody matches this exquisiteness. While it is resigned enough to lead you to believe that love is in the cards neither for the world nor the singer, a faint glimmer of hope remains on the final stanza: “Show the world how to get along, peace will enter when hate is gone but if it’s not asking too much, please send me someone to love”. Few versions surpass this one by Esther Phillips who shouldn’t need an introduction to modern audiences but probably does.
A native of Galveston who spent much of her too short time shuttling between her father’s house in Houston and her mothers in Los Angeles, Phillips dominated the R&B charts in 1950 when she, all of 15 years old. Her biggest pop hit came after her rediscovery (by Kenny Rogers) 12 years later when she scored big with her lush, majestic rendition of the country hit, “Release Me”.
By that time the pint-sized dynamo was already grappling joneses for both heroin and whiskey that never left her until she died of liver failure in 1984. But along the way she would leave behind some of the finest recordings of the ‘60s and early ‘70s and make a strong claim as the greatest female vocalist Houston every produced.
Phillips ran the gamut from gutbucket blues to big band jazz from soul-country to pure pop to British invasion rock – both the Beatles (“And I Love Her”) and The Stone (“As Time Goes By”) were in her repertoire. She was at her best when, like Ray Charles, she combined all that in one song.
And there was that voice. Man, that voice, equally capable of Lady Day vulnerability, Etta James fire, and the sophistication and hard-bitten diction she learned from her heroine, Dinah Washington. Like Nina Simone, Phillips had the rare ability to match a nasal razor-sharp edge with supple, full-throated phrasing without ever sounding as kittenish as Simone. There’s an echo of that style, albeit a faint one, in Amy Winehouse.
Atlantic Records Ahmet Ertegun called Phillips a singer of “extreme soul” who “thrilled you no matter what she sang”. When Aretha Franklin edged out Phillips for a Grammy in 1972 legend has it that the Queen of Soul deemed Phillips the more deserving of the two and handed the statuette over. One day Phillips will be rediscovered – mark our words.
I’ll finish up the H-Town Top 20 down the trail while you ponder these choices.
Alas, this article is not available in its original form online from the Press site.
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