Monthly Archives: February 2016

One community that I would clearly identify myself with would be my immediate family. That would include my parents my two sisters my brother their spouses and their kids. These are the people that I’ve spent my whole life with day in and day out and they’re people that I’m really close with. That’s because they really understand who I am. Country music figures into this community because these are the people that showed me what country music was all about. One of the earliest country music concerts I can remember going to was with my parents at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo when Brooks & Dunn were playing their last tour and they were playing in Houston. Brooks & Dunn was one of my dad’s favorite groups to listen to back in the day.

Brooks and Dunn at Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo

Going to the rodeo continued for a while as we would always try to find a country music artist to go see, we would go see people like George Strait, Eli Young Band, and the Zac Brown Band. This love for Texas country music followed me into college as I found myself trying to go see artist like Roger Creager and Josh Abbott Band when I was going to school at the University of Texas at San Antonio. As my siblings got older and went off to college they started to find Texas country music which they would bring back and show to me and that’s where I started to grow my love for Texas country music. Whenever we all get together we still find ourselves listening to country music and sometimes even Texas country. As we’ve all gotten older we still try to go to concerts together since we find ourselves listening to similar artists and groups and wanting to see them live. Country music has been in my life for almost all 21 years I’ve been around and it’s kind of like the phrase, “you can take me out of Texas, but you can’t take the Texas out of me,” country music will always be something that is a part of me.

I grew up listening to alternative rock music; I received my first iPod when I was eight, fully loaded with my dad’s favorite tunes. While my friends were listening to Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys, I was listening to Greenday and the Killers. I’m not going to lie, it made me feel like a badass (hence the pretentiousness I held myself with regarding music).

It is interesting that this is the way my family ended up because my mother’s parents are from rural Mississippi and my dad is from Kilgore in east Texas, a.k.a two breeding grounds for country-lovers. Don’t ask me how it came about that both my parents despise country music because I don’t know and I don’t think I ever will. What did they like? It’s very difficult to pin down one genre, but if I had to guess, it would be alternative rock, or what my dad would call “the antithesis of country music.” Yep, you guessed it; among the rather long list of genres my family hates is country.

Reads: “Unless you’re God or George Strait, take off your boots!”

I was introduced to country music in the ninth grade by two of my first high school friends, twins, Mason and Shelby. Their momma and daddy (their words not mine) were born ‘n’ raised country and it apparently trickled down to them. The first song was hard to swallow… I’m fairly certain it was George Strait. I wasn’t allowed to say anything negative about the King in front of Mr. and Mrs. Conine, so for four years I sucked it up whenever I was with them and listened to all kinds of country music. And… I began to like it, much to my surprise (/dismay).

You know who else was surprised? My parents. Actually, horrified is a better word. They could not believe that I had used their money to buy “that crap.” I distinctly remember my dad singing his best idea of what a country song’s lyrics sound like, something along the lines of “I married my cousin, we honeymooned in mah pickup truck…” It goes without saying that I never mentioned it again.

Since then, they’ve warmed up a little more to the idea of me listening to country, but every now and again I will play something slightly more hardcore and they will lose their crap; it’s become somewhat of a game for me. They’ll never understand how much it has helped me fit into other communities, like the summer camp at which I’ve grown up in East Texas, or my friends who go to A&M and two-step every weekend.

I remember I was working up at a camp in Colorado (based in Texas) a few summers ago, right at the peak of my interest in country music. Apparently, I had a lot to learn. Every Tuesday and Thursday nights, we would throw a barn dance for the families and kids at camp that week. We would two-step the night away, meanwhile I was taking mental notes from the dope playlist of songs to buy on iTunes.

Me before my affair with country music

By the end of the summer, I had an arsenal of songs that I could whip out in the car back home when someone handed me the aux cord, because maybe, just maybe, with this new repertoire of mine, my friends might actually take a chance on handing me the aux cord (I was previously banned from it due to my tendency to play “depressing” songs). So, even though I have “betrayed” my own flesh and blood, I have no regrets. Rock on, country-lovers. And Yee-haw.