By Mark Elswick, reprinted with permission from his “What The Els?” newsletter about Texas Country, Red Dirt, and American,music. E-mail him at els@markelswick.com and sign up to receive the bi-weekly emailed music magazine.
He’s Absolutely NO Copy-Cat — He’s Just an Amazing Musician!!!
Let’s play a little game…
Who is this guy?
Josh Langston, from his Web site
- An all-state football player
- A young Kid Rock
- A college scholarship golfer
- SNL’s The Church Lady
If you answered “B,” you are not alone. You’re wrong! But not alone. If you answered “D,”… c’mon. Surprisingly, the man is both “A” and “C.”
However, for the past eight years, he, Josh Langston, has been climbing that musical ladder. Often confused for Kid Rock, he just laughs it off and keeps moving forward in his musical quest.
“Quite a bit, actually,” Langston laughed when asked how often he was compared to The Kid. “He’s a very successful guy. I dig a lot of his stuff, so I don’t mind it, at all.”
As a decorated h.s. athlete, music was not always first-and-foremost. At the age of 20 or 21, Langston found himself working in the Texas oil fields, living in a hotel room, buying a guitar, and teaching himself to play. (C’mon — That has to be a country song in itself.) Having burned out on his life-long pursuit of a professional golf career, he opted to begin learning what he plans to do for the rest of his life — writing, playing, singing, and performing.
“I just quit my job and been doing this ever since,” the 29-year-old son of a retired Air Force father said. “I taught myself guitar and started writing shortly after I learned the basics. Within six months of learning to play, I was booking gigs.”
That was eight years ago. Today, the California native is looking forward to seeing his musical careeer, which saw him record his first album at 22, reach unseen heights. For nearly a decade, the two-time state football champion and state champion golfer at Allen Academy, a small private high school in Texas, has been perfecting his musical talent in his home state and Nashville.
His recent CD, “Liberty or Death,” is set for re-release in January of 2011. With crowd favorites “Right the Wrongs” and “Get Stoned,” in addition to my personal favorites, “Close Your Eyes” and “She Knows the Words,” the disc looks to be another hit in the Lone Star State. “She Knows the Words” was co-written by Wayne Mills and is, basically, written for his wife. Log on to www.joshlangstonband.com and give a listen. The song begins playing automatically once you log onto his Web site.
“It (“Liberty or Death”) was more of a grass roots thing,” Langston optimistically remarked. “We’ve had some success, so we’re going to go put a big push behind it and start working on a new record while we’re doing that, so we’ve got something to follow.”
Throughout his career, he has not been in a rush to accelerate his music. Likewise, he can be slow and deliberate in writing lyrics, as well. In fact, by his own admission, he has gone very long stretches without writing a a single verse, a point many would call hazardous to a songwriter’s career.
“I don’t force it,” Langston proudly admitted. “A lot of writing these days goes on in hotel rooms, on the road, or on the days I’m home. I might go six months without writing. I think the big difference (between mainstream and Texas country music) is in how the songs are written. Those songs have a general meaning. A lot of people are performing songs they didn’t write. There’s a lot of meaning in Texas music, though. These guys are writing their own stuff, perform it, record it, and put it on the radio. The music is a lot more personal to the artists.”
As mentioned, the talented showman — and life-long lover of outlaw country, “especially Hank Williams Jr.” — is set to release a brand new CD later next year. On it, Langston says, fans should expect to hear more of a blues feel.
When the work does come out, it is already on my Check It! CD list.