REAL MUSIC (AND POLITICS AND CULTURE)
MUSICIAN TOTALLY UNDERSTANDS HOUSTON

From CounterPunch:

I cross Caney Creek and pass Porter, Texas.

A billboard for a right wing "Christian" radio station announces, "He loves you, yeah yeah, yeah."

New Caney, Texas where a drummer I knew, Jack Fielder, a soft-spoken man with shoulder length blond hair, a mustache and a beard, was shot in the chest point blank by his wife Tara. His last word was "Why?"

As much as this part of Texas repulses me and sometimes scares me, I don't for a minute forget that this forgotten murky backwoods is a Cradle of American culture both black and white. Perhaps it was the forest that shielded East Texas from the passing of time, allowing culture, both black and white, sheltered in some way from the stifling influences of racism, fundamentalism and political conservatism, to stew and mix in its own way producing a mix of blues and country that to a small extent still exists today. If you've seen the movie "Deliverance", that is East Texas too, and perhaps more appropriately, "O Brother Where Art Thou." In Texas we chuckle quite a bit at that movie because those archetypal characters actually exist here. We all know people here who are exactly like the characters in the film--the same wide-eyed wonder, superstitiousness, but mixed with a certain anger and resentment, and a profound suspicion of outsiders.

Click here for the rest.

Fantastic essay. The woman who wrote it is a pedal steel guitar player who lives in Houston and gigs around the entire metro area--a third or so of the essay is about Houston proper, another third about Rosenberg, and the final third is about Cleveland, approximately thirty minutes up US 59 from Kingwood, where I grew up. She totally gets it. Her description of the fringes of the East Texas Piney Woods is perfect. I used to get my hair cut in Porter; the radio station to which she refers is KSBJ, far more depraved than any Clear Channel property. What's cool about her take on the area is that, even though she's quick to point out the intellectual disability and down home right wing attitudes suffered by the locals, she's also quick to observe that which is good about the place. But the entire article is great: it opens with rundown of Houston's rich musical history, and a lament that its best days are behind it. I never realized, for instance, that my hometown is an outpost for the Zydeco and Cajun music I hear all over the place here in Baton Rouge. I guess it's no surprise that Louisiana doesn't feel so alien to me.

Anyway, go check it out. It's a great read.

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