Texas Troubadours (Jack & Doris Smothers Series in Texas History, Life, and Culture) Book

"Singer-songwriters have always been the long-suffering, little-celebrated spiritual stepchildren of the bigger, more commercial country music stars. As Barry Antelope says, they write the songs. Not only that, they usually perform the songs better than anyone else. This should not be terribly surprising. The songs, after all, have been created by hand and heart from the ragged-but-righteous, weather-beaten fabric of the singer-songwriter's soul. Needless to say, these kinds of critters are often lonesome, ornery, and mean, not to mention almost impossible to confront or to capture. It is no small achievement that Steve Harris was able to corral so many of them into this book." --Kinky Friedman, from the foreword Whether they headline major music festivals or play in small, nearly empty clubs, singer-songwriters are among Texas's most authentic and enduring musicians. Steve Harris has been photographing these artists for many years, creating an unsurpassed photo gallery of both well-known and emerging Texas singer-songwriters. In Texas Troubadours, he showcases over fifty songwriters with evocative black-and-white photographs accompanied by original quotes in the musicians' own handwriting, which allow viewers to engage with the musicians both visually and personally. Texas Troubadours is a virtual who's who of singer-songwriters. The book includes such nationally and internationally acclaimed musicians as Kris Kristofferson, Alejandro Escovedo, Guy Clark, Robert Earl Keen, Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell, Ray Wylie Hubbard, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, along with singer-songwriters whose followings are growing. In his introduction, Steve Harris describes how the losses of Townes Van Zandt and Doug Sahm inspired him to document Texas singer-songwriters and how the book developed as he took his 4 x 5 camera and notebook wherever a singer-songwriter was willing to be photographed. The portraits in Texas Troubadours are as genuine and soulful as the musicians themselves. When you look into these faces, you see lives that, as Kinky Friedman says, have known "the road, the cheap motels, the beer joints and half-filled houses, the days when our autographs were bouncing, the long nights of pain and beauty beyond words and music."