Join the BFB Charitable Foundation for it’s
4th Annual Haute Time in Texas
Crawfish Boil and Fish Fry
May 9, 2009
3:30 pm - 10:30 pm
The Trading Post
9903 FM 2759 Richmond, Texas 77469
This years headlining act will be Roger Crager. For more than a decade, Roger Creager built a reputation on his distinctive brand of hard-core, rabble-rousing Texas Country music, on his rich, full-bodied voice that can carry a tune for miles, and on his exceptional ability to work thousands of Texans into a rabid frenzy with his voice and guitar, in the great concert tradition of Jerry Jeff Walker and Robert Earl Keen. Along the way, he’s been writing some mighty fine instant classics about family heirlooms, fields of bluebonnets, and late night trips to Mexico. Four albums, hundreds of thousands of road miles, and an ever-expanding fan base later, Here It Is has Roger Creager laying his cards on the table with thirteen songs that are arguably his best batch yet.
“It’s been five years since I’ve put out anything new,” Roger says. “So it’s five years of evolving and maybe even maturing, although it’s still me.” Actually, it’s more of him than ever. For the first time, he’s written or co-written every song on the album.
The first single, “I’m From the Beer Joint” plays to Creager’s honky-tonk wildcat image informed by his live album, as he declares his preference for independent drinking establishments. “It’s not going to change any lives, but it sure is fun,” Creager laughs about the sing-along, before turning serious. “But who wants to listen to a whole album of that?” He’s aiming for something higher.
“I hope there’s a song here that penetrates your soul, too,” he says, leaning forward. “There’s a few that may do just that. I aimed with a shotgun. I really did try to mix it up. There’s love songs [Missing You], drinking songs [the aforementioned "Beer Joint"], up-tempo dancing songs [I Love Being Lonesome], groovy little tunes [Tangle Me in You], one about a man who’s screwed up and he’s driving like hell through the middle of the night to get home [Driving Home]. ‘I Loved You When’ is my best story song yet. It doesn’t even tell the whole story. It doesn’t have to. It gives you just enough to know there’s a history there. It’s all you need to know.”
The two catalysts behind the album were Lloyd Maines, the go-to producer who produced Creager’s first albums, and Radney Foster, the Texas kid from Del Rio, whose songs and productions have established him as one of country music’s most innovative and edgy operators. Radney teamed up with Justin Tocket, a talented producer himself, to co-produce this project. But Roger himself is the biggest catalyst of all.
The Corpus Christi native was raised on songs like Guy Clark’s “Desperadoes Waiting For A Train” and Gary P. Nunn’s “You Ask Me What I Like About Texas” and under the influence of Jerry Jeff Walker, Lyle Lovett, Robert Earl Keen, and Jimmy Buffett, along with Willie, Waylon, Cash, Merle, and even Sinatra.
He graduated from college and spent two years in Houston working a 8-5 gig. He finally listened to his heart and moved back to College Station to pursue a life in music. Working without a paycheck was liberating. “I’d always been a slacker,” Roger admits, “and I could easily see myself failing in music because I wasn’t trying hard enough. So I promised myself that would be one excuse I’d never use. I just got out there and busted my hump.”
In 1998, he released Having Fun, then blew open the doors two years later with I Got the Guns. The title track, a striking piece about his granddad and his family, became a staple on more than 200 radio stations programming Texas Country Music. Long Way To Mexico and Live Across Texas grew his audience beyond state lines.
Here It Is speaks to those broadening horizons. “I was in 14 countries last year,” Roger says. “I want to take our music to a wider audience without compromising the integrity of the music. I’m taking some of who I am to where I’m going.”
“I’ve always tried to make records where every song is different so I can listen to them over and over again instead of forty five minutes of essentially the same song,” he says. With Here It Is, he can do just that. This go-round, he’s staying on for the whole ride.
Performing just before that will be Corry Morrow. It is fitting that a south of the border gamble nearly two decades ago would ultimately yield an acclaimed Texas troubadour. Cory Morrow’s humble artistic beginnings read like the gritty lyric of an unwritten Townes Van Zandt song. This straight-shooting musician, who drops his ninth solo release Vagrants And Kings on May 20th through Sustain Records, a branch of Universal Music, started strumming at the age of 15.
Fifteen years, and thousands of live shows later, Morrow has emerged as one of the lone star state’s best-loved artists. Revered along with college pal Pat Green as a preservationist of the unique Texas music “sound,” which combines elements of country, bluegrass, swing and blues, Morrow inspires a fierce loyalty in his fans. As an independent artist, he moved 200,000 discs through his own WriteOn label.
His latest offering, Vagrants And Kings, finds Morrow at his strongest- artistically, personally and spiritually. Morrow’s rustic sound remains part singer/songwriter: poetic and acoustic at times. But it’s equal parts country rock: accessible, hooky and rowdy in the tradition of outlaws like the Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson.
Joing us for the second time will be Kyle Hutton. Authentic, raw, transparent, truthful all appropriate adjectives for Kyle Hutton’s songs and his story. “Real Life Real Music” the title for this stage of Kyle’s journey serves as much as an internal reminder for Hutton as an external description for those who come into contact with his music and message. It’s clear that Kyle is only interested in one thing, changing lives, starting with his own.
Though Hutton’s new c/d and his shows are marked with the evidence of new beginnings his career has hardly just begun. His first two c/d’s have experienced success in the U.S., Europe, and Australia. “Boy Down Here in Texas” from Kyle’s second release climbed to #5 on the Texas Music Chart and was the #23 most played song in that year. In addition to delivering chart topping singles Hutton has performed in nationally recognized venues including: Reliant Stadium, The Houston Astrodome, Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, Reed Arena, and Fellowship of the Woodlands. Corporate clients include: The Houston Texans, Texas A and M University, Friendswood Development Company, Lenar Homes, and Keller-Williams Realty.
Kyle’s message transcends traditional venue boundaries and finds it’s way seamlessly from mega-venues to mega-churches, fortune 500 companies to non-profit organizations, and intimate singer/songwriter venues to major festival stages. It’s ability to do so stems from the universal messages embedded in the stories and songs. 
The opening act this year is Bayou Roux. Like the many tasty ingredients in a simmering pot of gumbo, the Cajun rock band Bayou Roux has blended years of diverse musical backgrounds into a unique sound that they like to call the “Cajun Commotion™”.
Founded in Houston, Texas in 1992 by Keith Dupuis, Mike Bourgeois and Ted Lee, all three from the Lafayette, LA area, Bayou Roux has grown from what they call a “goofy little garage band that came out of nowhere” into one of the most recognizable, good-time party bands on the US Gulf Coast.
Keith Dupuis is an eclectic mix of Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith and classic Louisiana accordion legends such as Iry LeJeune, Lawrence Walker and Clifton Chenier. Ted Lee is a baby-boomer bassist brought up on groups like The Beatles, Deep Purple, Steely Dan and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. Mike Bourgeois is a former drum corps and USAF military drummer, influenced by the rhythms of Van Halen, Rush, Country and sophisticated Jazz. Ken Reynolds, a true guitar virtuoso who joined the group shortly after its inception, has played it all from Cajun to Country, Rhythm & Blues to Rock and Jazz. Dwayne Boehnemann, the newbie of the group, is a honky tonk style keyboardist who has country in his veins having grown up on a farm tractor tuned in to Floyd Cramer, Boots Randolph, Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard.
What a recipe. What a sound. Fans have found that a pinch of rock, a scoop of county and a heapin’ helpin’ of down-home Cajun/Zydeco heritage heated to the boiling point makes for a musical experience like no other.