THE JOURNAL
Mr Bill Callahan, Wimberly, Texas, 2020. Photograph by Hanly Banks Callahan
“I’m New Here,” the second to last song on Mr Bill Callahan’s 2005 album, A River Ain’t Too Much To Love, has a line that embodies both his magnetic charm as an artist, as well as the vast and unknowable nature of the Lone Star State. “Met a woman at a bar/I told her I was hard to get to know and near impossible to forget,” he sings. “She said I had an ego on me the size of Texas.” He replies, deadpan, “Well, I’m new here and I forget/Does that mean big or small?”
Arguably the most important living American singer-songwriter, Callahan is a Texan by choice, if not birthright. He lived on both coasts before settling in Austin, where he is now raising a family. He identifies the state as a transitory by nature. “I look at Texas as where the east changes to the west,” he says. “A combination of both those things makes it a transformational place.”
Callahan’s albums, the ones written while he was in Texas and the ones not, share a theme common in the use of expansive sound that mirrors the state’s landscape, though their tenor changes from album to album. Sometimes that embodies itself sometimes in sparse songs, quiet recordings that capture his deep voice and light drawl. Sometimes it’s the foot stomping fiddle zigzagging across a tune. Whatever he does, he does on a grand scale befitting of the state.
The musician’s 10 favourite Texas albums, too, span genres from country to minimalism to screwed and chopped hip-hop. He doesn’t see a through-line in them across sound, but the state seems to call to him regardless. “What always amazes me is, especially with older music, when I look up to see where the artist is born and raised, it’s almost always that they were born in Texas.”
01.
Mr Waylon Jennings
**Lonesome On’ry And Mean **(1973)
A classic album from the outlaw country king
“I was listening to this a lot when I was writing my album Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest. There’s something about the vocal performances. I like when people are singing very quietly, almost to themselves, you know, as if they’re driving a car and singing quietly along. Yes, that way. It makes what he’s doing sound really easy, even though it’s maybe not. It’s kind of hypnotic how relaxed he can be.”
02.
Devin the Dude
**The Dude **(1998)
Houston’s laid-back narrator of cinéma-vérité hip-hop
“I’m drawn to the idiosyncratic nature of his stories. He’s got a song about his Lacville ’79 [1979 Cadillac Seville]. It’s just the opposite of what is generally covered in rap music. Very down to earth, realistic, day-to-day stuff, like going into [a] 7-Eleven and talking about what happened. He’s got a very endearing personality. The music is a little more melodic than lots of other rappers. He’s another guy who I’ve read grew up singing in church. I love his singing voice, which is something that I wish more rappers would do.”
03.
Mr Jerry David DeCicca
**Time The Teacher **(2018)
A modern pop album from a Texas transplant
“I call this record ‘baby feeding music’. When I’m feeding my seven-month-old, she seems to like it. There’s no sudden noises, it’s very calm and dreamy, a little bit abstract with jazzy horn breaks. It’s very gentle sailing.”
04.
Mr Roky Erickson
“I Think Of Demons” (1981/1987)
A gateway into the psych rock pioneer’s back catalogue
“This was the first material I heard of his at length. I got into his solo records before getting access to those 13th Floor Elevators records. I like anything he sings, because he just gives it his all every time, every second of every song. Just all the world he creates on this record, all the demons, all the dogs, it’s just real different. One of the reasons I listen to music is to get into people’s heads, or get out of my own head. He’s singing about a lot of stuff that isn’t very common. Everything’s really believable and personal; a glimpse into his brain. It’s not just singing about heartbreak. You’re never really sure the singer is really feeling it or just singing it because that’s what people sing about. On this record, you know he means it.”
05.
Mr Jerry Jeff Walker
**¡Viva Terlingua! **(1973)
Putting a little bit of funky in your country
“This is a very chummy record that makes you feel like there’s a joke that you both are in on. Not just jokes, but also romance and adventure. The record takes you on an adventure. It’s a very tactile kind of record. You feel his personality very strongly, like he’s talking to you directly, like he’s got his arm around you while he’s singing. It’s a very kind of warm record in that way – a body heat way.”
06.
Mr Mickey Newbury
**Rusty Tracks **(1977)
Earnest and romantic 1970s country from a singer who defines the genre
“I’m really fond of Rusty Tracks, in particular for its medley of ‘In The Pines’, ‘Shenandoah’ and ‘Danny Boy’. He explodes these three songs and makes them into something just very transcendent. I loved his version of ‘In The Pines’ before attempting mine, but I couldn’t copy the way he performed it if I wanted to. He’s one of those guys that grew up singing in church since he was a little kid, and if you do that, by the time you’re an adult, your voice is a huge, soaring thing.”
07.
Ms Pauline Oliveros
**Alien Bog **(1967)
Freaky sounds from an originator of minimalism
“I guess what I like about her stuff is you get a real sense of thought. When you can sense a musician thinking, it draws you into the music because when I’m listening to that record I almost feel like I’m pressing the button making the sounds. It’s a very cerebral thing. These are the sounds that my head makes when I’m asleep or these are the weird sounds going on in my head, but I haven’t been able to tap into them until somebody made a recording of them. If I’m doing something that really I hate, like doing some accounting or tax work or something, I put this on, and I feel like somehow the numbers that I’m entering in the computer are controlling the universe.”
08.
DJ Screw
**3 ’N The Mornin’ **(1994)
The greatest work from the inventor of screwed and chopped music – AKA slowed down and cut up
“I think it’s just so weird that nobody ever thought about [slowing down music] before him. It was a very bold move to have that idea and go through with it. It’s such transportive music – like Pauline Oliveros, it puts you in a place really quickly. Something beyond words. It just slows everything down and you feel like you’re on codeine. But then that’s the power of music, you don’t have to take any drugs. It just slows down the consciousness.”
09.
Mr Willie Nelson
**Spirit **(1996)
A sparse, mid-career stunner
“Spirit is a little different from all of his other records. It has a minimalistic approach. He really made this one kind of stark and introspective. And certainly he has other stark and introspective songs, but he seems to be his starkest and introspective combined into one album. Sometimes when things are so plain like that, they’re easy to listen to repeatedly because there’s so much space that is not taxing on your brain. It’s very easy to absorb it into your spirit. Something really special happened in those two days of recording.”
10.
Mr Doug Sahm
**Doug Sahm And Band **(1973)
Good Texas party music
“I think I read this record was the first one where he kind of got his own control over the music without the record label interfering. It could be totally something I’m putting onto it, but feels like the band is liberated. It’s just good Texas party music.”