My Brand of Blues, Marvin Rainwater, & me...

Marvin Rainwater was an American country & rockabilly singer/songwriter who was born in Wichita, Kansas. He had several hits during the late 1950s, including "Gonna Find Me a Bluebird" & "Whole Lotta Woman," which hit #1 on the UK Singles Chart. He was known for wearing Native American-themed outfits on stage & claimed to have quarter-blood Cherokee ancestry.

“My Brand Of Blues” was one of several gold records he scored in 1959. The other two being "My Love Is Real" & "Half Breed”, a cover version of a John D. Loudermilk song. That same year, he recorded the original version of another Loudermilk song, "The Pale Faced Indian”, which later became a huge hit for Paul Revere & The Raiders under the title "Indian Reservation”.

“My Brand of Blues” has an eerie, tortured love theme & an early Johnny Cash-type feel. I first heard it on a ‘MGM Rockabilliy Collection’ album released in Europe in 1977 that I bought as an import a couple of years later. It was among the first several batch of tunes I suggested to guitarist Joe Dickens when we started putting together the earliest version of the Out On Parole band in 1984. Not an easy song to play because of the almost arbitrary number of times playing the riff before the vocals come in each time, “My Brand of Blues” languished at the bottom of the song list & was performed infrequently. When Out On Parole reformed in the 21st century, the song was revitalized & made the cut for the 2011 sessions that birthed the new DEVIL GET AWAY FROM ME album.

"My Brand of Blues" by T. Tex Edwards & Out On Parole

Listen & Download at: https://ttexedwards.bandcamp.com/track/my-brand-of-blues 

T. Tex Edwards & Out On Parole - Pardon Me, I've Got Someone To Kill

 T. TEX EDWARDS writes: 

Way back in the 1980’s, Mr. Mike Buck gave me a cassette mixtape he made called THE RUBBER ROOM, comprised of old C&W songs about murder, madness, jails etc. but mainly about murder. Nowadays it’s a whole genre of it’s own. But back then it was just tapes of weird old tunes that record collectors like Buck shared amongst friends.

I had a friend named Danny Whittington back in Austin with some recording equipment at his house & on a lark, I suggested we record some of those songs next time I was back in town visiting from my then-current home in Hollywood, California. That was how this album came about. What started out as a kind of sick joke turned into a semi-serious music project.

As it turned out, the songwriting on the most part was strong, the musicianship of the friends & friends-of-friends who were recruited was sure, & somehow my drug-sick, mumbled warbling fit right in & some minor magic was created.

Weirdo Austin artist Bob “Don’t Call Me Robert” Frye, another friend-of-a-friend was tagged with coming up with some coverart. Something along the lines of Porter Wagoner’s COLD, HARD FACTS OF LIFE (one of the songs included) & this fantastic creation of Bob’s was the lynchpin in convincing Long Gone John, indie record guy & collector of transgressive art, to release a vinyl LP of the project on his Sympathy For The Record Industry label.

Much, much later, after the century turned & I had moved back to Austin, Jeff Smith of Saustex Media, consented to re-releasing a CD version in 2007.

Which brings us to the present where I still have some of those CDs left to peddle to you here on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/155359257397

AMAZON BLURB:

'Pardon Me, I've Got Someone To Kill' is a re-issue of the classic 1989 Sympathy For The Record Industry release (also New Rose in France, 1991) by T. Tex Edwards & Out On Parole. T. Tex is a true Texas Punk pioneer dating from his work in the 70's with the Nervebreakers and his later Hollywood outfit the Loafin' Hyenas. 'Pardon Me,...' is a collection of obscure C & W 'murder' songs rendered in Edwards' singular style. Top-notch backing on the disc is provided by Austin Roots luminaries Mike Buck (Fabulous T-Birds, Leroi Bros.) on the drums, John X. Reed (Doug Sahm, Jesse Taylor, Lucky Tomblin Band) on a variety of guitars, and other lesser-known but equally talented weirdos. 14 tales about drinkin', cheatin', killin' and prison rendered in high Texan fashion for your listening enjoyment. Includes the previously unreleased 'Last Will and Testimony (of a Drinking Man)' by Tex and the Affordable Caskets.