Country Mike Blog

Texas Gravy

Mike Sudhalter  |  August 17, 2008

Last night, I had a couple of "Texas Firsts." Got a chance to see my first movie here in the Lone Star State, "Tropic Thunder" in Spring. The movie was pretty good, although I didn't figure out that Tom Cruise was in it, until the credits rolled.

I hadn't planned to see the movie, but I showed up at Big Texas Dancehall and Saloon last night at 7 p.m. to see Aaron Watson and Sunny Sweeney.

The folks at Big Texas told me that Sweeney went on around 9:30 p.m., so I had a couple of hours with nothing to do. So, I saw the movie. My Texas honky-tonk experience got off to an interesting start.

When I first arrived at the club, I parked up front. After the movie ended around 9, cones were everywhere, and the manager said they'd been looking for me for a while, because they needed to park a tour bus where I was parked. I was so embarrassed, but he said it was all good as I moved my car to a different spot.

Once in the club, I was impressed and got the chance to meet a lot of friendly folks.

One conversation I had was about Texas Country vs. Nashville Country. It actually took an interesting turn. Because of the passion, I have - as do many other Texas Music fans - it's easy to bash Nashville music.

But I started pointing out the merits of some Nashville traditionalists to a fellow named Pat. At first, he criticized Nashville. Then, he said something that represents a pretty good outlook of the whole situation. He said Nashville goes in cycles, which I knew to be true.

Then, he said that it's all about Texas Music and anything good that Nashville puts out is just gravy. Nice way of looking at it.