Texas music legend Gary P Nunn grew up in Brownfield.
Whitney Rose to open the show!
Whitney Rose may be a native Canadian, but the sound the young singer-songwriter has crafted for herself is entirely Texan twang. On January 27th, Rose will release the new EP South Texas Suite. A collection of six songs, the project is the follow-up to last year's Heartbreaker of the Year, produced by Raul Malo of the Mavericks.
On South Texas Suite, however, Rose goes it alone, producing the entire EP by herself. Songs like lead single "My Boots" – available today on iTunes – and the south-of-the-border tribute "Three Minute Love Affair," a paean to the Lone Star State's dance halls, bristle with local flavor. Now residing in Austin, Rose cut the record at Dale Watson's studio in town. Other songs on the EP include the wistful "Lookin' Back on Luckenbach" and "Blue Bonnets," a soaring slice of Fifties ear candy that calls to mind the Skyliners and Dion and the Belmonts. The latter isn't a stretch: one of Rose's first recordings with Malo was a cover of the Ronettes' "Be My Baby."
Gary P. Nunn has been TAKING TEXAS TO THE COUNTRY and Texas country to the world for some 40 years now, establishing himself as an icon of Lone Star music. A founding father of the progressive country movement out of Austin in the 1970s that changed the face of popular music, Nunn is also an independent music pioneer who continues to oversee his own record label and song publishing companies, manage his own career (with the help of his wife Ruth), and play most every weekend at top music venues throughout Texas and beyond. His composition “London Homesick Blues” — with its internationally known “I wanna go home with the Armadillo” chorus — is a signature Texas country song that was the theme for the PBS concert TV show “Austin City Limits” for nearly three decades. It’s no wonder that All Music Guide hails him as “a Texas music institution.”
In addition to the many gold albums on which he has played and/or written and published songs, Nunn has earned a number of notable awards and honors over the years. He was named an Official Ambassador to the World by Texas Governor Mark White, and years later Governor Rick Perry also declared him an Ambassador of Texas Music. In 2004, he was inducted into the Texas Hall of Fame, and he is also honored in the West Texas Walk of Fame in Lubbock. And now, more than half a century since he first started playing music, Nunn enthuses, “I’m having more fun now than ever. It just feels good. When you have a great band behind you and the audience is out there on the dance floor, you just say, ‘Yeah! This the reason I got into this in the first place.’ I love it more than ever.”
“The thing I’m proudest of is being a member of the West Texas Walk of Fame in Lubbock with Buddy Holly, Waylon Jennings, Bob Wills and Roy Orbison — guys who were my heroes. To me that’s just the greatest thing,” he enthuses. “And then today, turning on Sirius/XM radio and hearing myself played next to Hank Williams, Hank Thompson, Willie Nelson and Johnny Bush. I’m just so proud and pleased to be there among them.” And now, more than half a century since he first started playing music, Nunn enthuses, “I’m having more fun now than ever. It just feels good. When you have a great band behind you and the audience is out there on the dance floor, you just say, ‘Yeah! This the reason I got into this in the first place.’ I love it more than ever.”