Andrew Smith
Augie Meyers features on another album in Bear Family’s On The Honky Tonk Highway series. Perhaps best described as “Texas Country,” tracks on this entertaining 26-track album run the gamut from anthems to Texas (Deed To Texas, Deep In The Heart Of Texas, Sun Shines Down On Me In Texas, High Texas Rider), country music (Dim Lights, Thick Smoke, Faded Love, and a rocked up You Win Again) to other gems (Meet Me In Seguin, Down In Mexico, Tequila Sam), with artists such as one-time Bob Wills’ Texas Playboy, the late Al Stricklin, Doug Sahm, and Pablo Casillas all making appearances.
Fifteen tracks appear on CD for the first time. Overwhelmingly, the mood of the album is one of a happy, upbeat, Tex-Mex atmosphere of dance-type melodies, with a predominant “Texas” sound quite unlike that of Nashville, although a few songs (for example, Wedding Bells) could have easily been recorded in Music City USA.
The accompanying booklet aptly describes the music as “classic San Antonio of blues, country, conjunto and Tex Mex, of accordions and tenor saxes. You’re certainly not going to find it anywhere else, except of course on this CD.” I couldn’t agree more and replayed this CD over and over (and loudly) when listening to it.
Augie Meyers was born in 1940 and raised on a farm. He had polio as a child and the resultant lack of mobility led him to learn to play the piano. He made friends with fellow Texan Doug Sahm, and later was a member of the Sir Douglas Quintet and the Texas Tornados (with Sahm, Flaco Jiminez and Freddy Fender).
Meyers’ credentials are impeccable: he has played piano on albums by Bob Dylan, John P. Hammond, Tom Jones, Tom Waits and Raul Malo. He formed his own Texas Re-Cord Company in the late 1970s, and currently resides near San Antonio, Texas.
Bear Family have other CDs of Augie Meyers: Country, Loves, Lost And Found and Santa Fe, all worth checking out.
The accompanying 38-page booklet by British music historian Martin Hawkins comprises biographical information and detailed song-by-song discussion complemented by discographical data, and enhances the listening experience.
Hawkins has previously penned the notes for other Bear Family sets, including Tennessee Jive, 1945-1955 and the book A Shot in the Dark: Making Records in Nashville, 1945-1955 (both highly recommended, too). He also wrote the notes to complement another Bear Family album in their On The Honky Tonk Highway series, Jeannie C. Riley.
Collectors should be grateful to Bear Family for reissuing Augie’s High Texas Rider and the other albums in their On The Honky Tonk Highway series. They are gems from earlier eras of country music.
