Music Review: “Still Swinging In Texas”

I thought I’d write my last post of the year on TMV on a subject I am not an expert on. (“What else is new?”, you say).

The subject is music, more specifically “Western Swing and Country Music.”

Although I am not an expert in music, especially Country and Western music, I don’t let such a little thing keep me from recognizing and enjoying such fine music or from telling you about it.

It just so happened that during the Christmas holidays I met a lovely couple, Bobby and Maureen Lueders.

Talking with Bobby, I knew there was something “special” about his voice and something charming about his Texas “accent.”

As we engaged in some “serious conversation,” I learned that Bobby has his own band , a band that has been performing deep in the heart of Texas since the 70s, and in which he is the lead vocalist—a very good and smooth one at that.

As a matter of fact, Bobby comes from a great musical family. His dad had a family band before World War II, in which Bobby’s two oldest brothers played guitar and banjo. When, tragically, both brothers, Alvin and Alton, were killed in action in that War, the band broke up. But, Bennie, Bobby’s only surviving brother, started his own Western Swing band in the 1940s and had a big influence on Bobby.

The rest is history. Today, Bobby Lueders has a band made up of some of the Austin area’s finest players of that wonderful “Western Swing” genre of music.

Over the weekend I listened to Bobby’s new CD, “Still Swinging in Texas” and thoroughly enjoyed it, especially some of my favorites such as “San Antonio Rose,” “My Adobe Hacienda,” “Spanish Eyes,” and “South of the Border.” (You can tell my Latino leanings)

But the CD also has some beautiful North of the Border music, such as “You Don’t Know Me,” “Faded Love,” all the way to the big band swing memory “Jersey Bounce” and a Western Swing version of “Kansas City.”

To learn more about Bobby Lueders and his band, and to sample some of his delicious music, please visit his web site at http://www.myspace.com/thebobbyluedersband

You may decide to “keep on dancing and swinging as we do in Texas”