when The Texas Regional Radio Show handed out its annual awards in Arlington on March 25, Wade Bowen was the most honored winner, taking home three trophies, including male vocalist of the year.
Three nights later, he hit Global Life Field — again in Arlington — for the Texas Rangers' season opener. It was a big deal: Bowen has a lifelong obsession with the team, and his presence at that game meant he witnessed them raise a flag to recognize the Rangers' first World Series victory in 2023. Bowen delivered “The Star-Spangled Banner” that day, but the team also played another anthem over the stadium's sound system: Bowen's “Nothin But Texas.”
“Of all the times I've heard it,” says Bowen, “it's never been better.”
The New Braunfels resident is one of red dirt's premier artists, drawing on a country bar-band style that suits the state's heavy acoustic habits. But the region also boasts a notable blues/rock undercurrent, and “Nothin But Texas” draws on that underrepresented part of Bowen's musical personality.
“Obviously I listened to Stevie Ray Vaughan and ZZ Top and Delbert McClinton,” he says. “I listened to them a lot, you know. It's around me all the time, so it's like, “Okay, I've got to show some of this.”
“Nothin But Texas” came in Bowen's first collaboration with songwriter Leslie Satcher (“Troubadour,” “When God-Fearin' Women Get The Blues”), whose default goal is to write something energetic.
“I'll leave the ballads to the other guys,” he says. “I want to write the uptempo, let's-turn-up-the-radio-and-drive song. And I'll say, “Let's do something that will have your crowds with their beer in the air.”
They didn't have a specific title or musical approach in mind when they started writing, but both are from the Lone Star State, and Satcher had just returned to Nashville after visiting Texas. Somewhere in their introductory conversation, one of them said that when they were able to retire, it would be 'nothing else' than Texas to me.” This sounded like something they could turn into a celebration, and Satcher began playing a blues-bound groove in open tuning, starting the chords on the afterbeat and cutting them on the downbeat. It had the same propulsive feel as Ozark Mountain Daredevils' “If You Wanna Get to Heaven.”
Most Nashville songwriters would focus on the chorus first, but it didn't work that way here. “I always start at the front line,” Satcher insists. “It was just a building block as we went – kind of Jenga, you know. It's like you keep piling on until something falls.”
Figuring out the song was almost too easy. They turned the opening verse into a travelogue of American party towns, leaning towards Las Vegas, New Orleans and Los Angeles, with the singer musing that he was “dropped off in LA” This, of course, is the big achievement – whoever drives him on the 405 during the day he knows the brake is on as well as the gas pedal.
“I guess we shouldn't have said that,” Bowen says. Nonsense, Satcher counters: “There's a lot of ways to drive fast in LA., you know. It's a party life and it's a fast life.”
These cities created the chorus's reward: These cities are great, but “Ain't nothing but Texas to me.” This opinion is strengthened when it is repeated in the second line, and after a melodic detour applying blue notes at the end of lines three and four, it is said again to end the chorus. So the title appears three times in five lines.
They both guessed—repetition is too intense when it's written on paper—but the questions quickly disappeared. “Hymns should be simple,” quips Bowen. “That's what makes them anthems.”
The second verse also seemed easy. After playing the state in the chorus, they had to explain what makes Texas so great. Or, since it was a song for Bowen to sing, what makes it such a great place for him.
That meant putting a country-band perspective on partying in the Lone Star State. They blocked I-35, “straight to the river” – it crosses the entire state, from north to south, from Denton to Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and the streets of Laredo, connecting with a Mexican avenue at the edge of the Rio Grande. “I-35 is obviously a huge part of my life,” Bowen says. “Well, I live with 35 more than [in] my damned house.”
By the end of the verse, the singer promises to clap “every dog that tryna run me over” for playing the music too loud. “Dog of the law” is a phrase Satcher has used before – “It's so much fun,” he says – though it's probably a fake bravo.
“Anyone who knows me knows I'll keep my mouth shut,” Bowen admits, when asked if he would actually confront a police officer. On the other hand, he says, “I have a drunken alter ego named Paul who can do it.”
Satcher slipped in a reference to “cowboy beers” — a phrase she and her husband use for their Coors Light habit — during a bridge so subtle it could pass without the listener recognizing the change of the rhythm. “The people who dance in Texas, the ballroom people, they're not particularly interested in a song that's out of tune or has a weird melody or something like that,” Satcher says. “They dance and that's how they want to keep going round and round.”
Bowen created a sparse working tape, but when his crew had some time on tour in Colorado, they made a more extensive demo that featured the basic setup. Bowen recorded “Nothin But Texas” over the course of three days for his album i flyNov. 15-17, at Curb Studio 43, a Music Row facility with Spanish-flavored arched entrances, an architectural touch familiar to Texas.
An eight-piece studio band reinforced the demo's blues/rock foundations, approaching the sound of Vaughan's recordings, particularly through Jim “Moose” Brown's earthy Hammond B-3 tones and Tom Bukovac's assured guitar. The band members casually entered during a 25-second intro that stiffened the opening beats and kept going for at least a minute after the song had survived its Jenga run. Bowen, who produced the track himself, asked Bukovac after one take to extend the solo, giving it an even more live sound.
A day later, Satcher came in to play deep vocals, offering R&B-flavored ad libs and three-part church harmonies. “This piece isn't as good,” says Bowen, “if Leslie doesn't sing the parts.”
“Nothin But Texas” was a key focus track on its May 10 release i flywhile another track, “Rainin On Me”, plays on red stations, charting at No. 9 on May 24 Texas Regional Radio Report chart. It's a statement about the musical identity of both Bowen and his hometown.
“Texas isn't just country music,” notes Bowen. “This kind of music is a huge part of our state: blues/rock. It's a huge, huge aspect of where I come from.”
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/country/wade-bowen-makin-tracks-nothin-but-texas-1235699616/