CD Review, “Live A Little More”

| April 9, 2014 | Reply
TB CD coverOriginally published in the April issue, Buddy Magazine

“Live A Little More”, The Tejas Brothers. No No Records (Independent)

Eleven songs complete this new project, “Live A Little More,”  from the Tejas Brothers, 12 if you count the little reminder at the end of the CD, “Drink responsibly,” added because one of the sponsors on the CD is Forty Creek Whiskey. The 12th cut on the CD is a Thank You to the sponsor, and to the musicians who helped create this work of art.

Lead singer and accordionist Dave Perez wrote nine of the songs; co-wrote two with Larry Joe Taylor and Jim Suhler,;and covers  by Richard Leigh, Clay Mills, and Desiree Corso. In all, the songs swing dynamically and effortlessly from one to the next, alternating feelings of party, despair, love, and party again.

Perez opens with “Red, White & Blue,” with the truthful lines, “When you look past all the colors on the outside of a Texan, inside you’ll see we’re all red, white and blue.”

From that, the band swings over into more of a Salsa feel with “Don’t Be So Mean,” featuring heavy on Perez’ accordion. The sensitive “Rosa” and “That’s Just Crazy” are of love lost, or nearly lost. “The One and Lonely Me” shows the sensitivity Perez can put in his songs, a soulful sound with a Hispanic influence.

Perez and the band  John Garza on bass, Derek Groves on guitar, and Beau Johnson on drums, and all of them on

Courtesy photo

Courtesy photo

vocals — had help on this with friends Lloyd Maines on guitar and pedal steel; Augie Meyers on vox, organ and vocals; Pat Manske on percussion and organ; Larry Joe Taylor on vocals; and Deryl Dodd on vocals. Not all on the same song, that help was scattered throughout all the songs.

Usually, from The Tejas Brothers one gets a Tex-Mex feel with emphasis on the ‘Mex’ portion. In this record, there’s more ‘Tex’ than ‘Mex’ and Perez said they are billed as a Tex-Mex Honky Tonk band. It works.

 

 

 

 

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Category: - CD Reviews

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In the music production business, including event production, booking, photography, reporting, and other such essentials, since 1980.

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