| Texas has a heart that's as big as the boundless | | | | Said I Do."-True, Black was born in New Jersey. |
| horizon, and tends to wear that heart on its | | | | But since he moved to Katy, Texas when he |
| sleeve. No wonder when love hits a bumpy patch | | | | was less than a year old, his musical influences are |
| of road, you can hear its tires squeal on country | | | | strictly Lone Star. This Grammy-nominated duet |
| music stations across the nation. Here's a list of | | | | with his wife is testament to one of the most |
| some of the Lone Star State's greatest love | | | | enduring unions in country music. |
| songs with a country twist. | | | | Waylon Jennings, "Amanda."-Jennings started |
| Kenny Rogers, "Lady."-Written and produced | | | | his career as Buddy Holly's bass player, the guy |
| by Lionel Richie, "Lady" was the first hit of the | | | | who didn't make the plane the night the music |
| 1980's to top all four Billboard singles charts, | | | | died. In the 1970's, fed up with the way Nashville |
| country, adult contemporary, Top 100 and (yes) | | | | producers softened his sound, he retreated home |
| Black Singles. No other Texas artist has surpassed | | | | to Austin to get his edge back, which earned him |
| the long career of Houston-born Kenny Rogers. | | | | the label "outlaw." To this day Austin remains in |
| Rogers' album "The Gambler" remains one of the | | | | many ways the Second City of Country music, |
| biggest selling country records of all time, and | | | | rejecting the glitz and glamour of Nashville for a |
| over a sixty year career Rogers is still recording | | | | grittier, more authentic sound. |
| and selling out concert venues. | | | | Freddy Fender, "Before the Next Teardrop |
| Lonestar, "Amazing."-"The smell of your skin... | | | | Falls."-Born to a circus family that wintered in |
| the taste of your kiss... the way you whisper in | | | | Harlingen, the then Baldemar Huerta made his first |
| the dark..." How many girls turned up the radio | | | | guitar out of a sardine can and some screen door |
| and moved in closer to the boys they loved, | | | | wire when he was five years old and taught |
| driving down the back roads of East Texas (and | | | | himself to play. Some time later he changed his |
| all across the nation?) Texas transplants to | | | | name to Freddy Fender, took the Tejano sound - |
| Nashville, Lonestar originally called itself Texassee | | | | a musical legacy of Texas' earliest Spanish settlers |
| before opting for a name that reminded them | | | | - and transmuted it into country music gold. |
| more of their roots. | | | | Lyle Lovett, "She's Already Made Up Her |
| Dixie Chicks, "Cowboy Take Me Away."-But | | | | Mind."-Word on the street - or at least on |
| the cowboy Martie McGuire, Emily Robison and | | | | numerous Internet fan sites - is that this song is a |
| Natalie Maines are singing about is not George W. | | | | reminiscence of the one-time Mrs. Lovett. |
| Bush as the girls made very clear ten days | | | | However the album it appeared on came out a |
| before the 2003 Iraq invasion. "Just so you | | | | whole year before Lyle met the actress Julia |
| know," quipped Maines, "we're ashamed the | | | | Roberts. It is still a haunting, beautiful song. |
| president of the United States is from Texas." | | | | Willie Nelson, "Always On My Mind."-With his |
| The remark generated a huge controversy that | | | | close pal and sometimes-musical collaborator |
| led to a short-lived boycott of their records. The | | | | Waylon Jennings, Nelson is better known as an |
| Grammies made up for that. | | | | "outlaw" than a romantic. But he has written a |
| George Strait, "The Man In Love With You."-"I | | | | number of lyrical love songs. This is the sweetest. |
| never could work miracles.... There may be others | | | | Townes Van Zandt, "Send Me Dead |
| who can do what I can't do..." Well, not when it | | | | Flowers."-True, a bittersweet ode to a |
| comes to selling 58.5 million records, generating | | | | self-destructive girlfriend is not the stuff of |
| forty-four number one singles on the Billboard | | | | mainstream romance. But then singer songwriter |
| country chart and winning more Country Music | | | | Van Zandt was not a mainstream kind of guy. |
| Association awards than any other artist. Born in | | | | Not everyone's convinced that this a country |
| Poteet, Texas and raised on a cattle ranch, the | | | | song but how can you doubt it when you hear it |
| practical-minded Strait also has a bachelor's | | | | on a steel guitar? While the Rolling Stones' version |
| degree in agriculture to fall back on in case he | | | | may be the best known, The Cowboy Junkies did |
| ever needs a day job. | | | | the definitive cover on their album named (of all |
| Clint Black and Lisa Hartman Black, "When I | | | | things) Canada. |