"The last time I recorded in Nashville," says Don Walser, "...I'd always wanted to play with those guys, like Buddy Emmons, Buddy Spicher and Charlie McCoy. It was a real good experience, but there's nothing like playing with your own band."

That's why the genial, 66-year-old former Texas National Guardsman used his regular guys on his latest album, łI'll Hold You In My Heart," for everything but one cut originally done for the łHi Lo Country" soundtrack of last year.

The album was his first for Valley Entertainment after a string of releases for Watermelon - his first when he was 60, then Watermelon/Sire, and finally Sire Records.

"We did that one in Ft. Worth, with the trumpets and fiddles, and most of the guys on it were old western swing musicians, like Tommy Allsupp and all those guys," Walser notes, adding that Marty Stuart co-produced the track.

Beyond that, though it's basically the trademark classic country stylings of Walser's Pure Texas Band ­ steel guitarist Scott Walls, fiddler Howard Kalish, Skinny Don Keeling on bass, Phillip Farjardo on drums and ringer Floyd Domino on piano - playing Texas swing and Walser singing and yodeling away in his distinctive voice.

"He (Domino) plays with me on most of the big gigs," he says of the in-demand player, łat least if he's not busy, he plays with me at least once a month. So, I've counted him as part of my band for years," Walser laughs.

George Strait's Ace In The Hole Band veterans Rick McRay and Benny McArthur provide lead guitars, but the essential sound is as close to his live one as Walser's come on a recording.

The new album is also noteworthy for including a generous helping of Walser's own songs. There are five originals, ranging from a vintage-sounding shuffle, łIf You Don't Want To See Me Going (Turn And Look The Other Way)" to łRock-A-Billy Rage" and the humorous łBuck And Merle."

"I'm not a great songwriter, but I've got a few good songs, and I didn't want to put them all on one CD, so I've been kind of piecemealing them out. But this time, I decided to put more of them on there because I'm getting older, and I want to try to record as much of my stuff as I can," he explains.

"I wrote 'If You Don't Want To See Me Going' about four years ago," he continues. łSomebody gave me that line, and I wrote the song around it. I guess you could say I put all the shuffles in one song. I like shuffles, but they're all kind of alike. (Austin musician) Cornell Hurd said that every time I write a song, it sounds likeŠand he named one of those old Ray Price songs. He's not entirely wrong because most of them sound kind of alike, but they're all good, too. Ray Price had a hundred songs that sounded alike, but they were all good."

"The shuffle is a great dance," the Lamesa, Texas native continues. łWhen I play at the Broken Spoke (an Austin club), I do a lot more shuffles than I normally do because usually I like to sing all kinds of songs. You know, when I was growing up and playing music, I never did play the Top 40 game, because there are so many in the Top 40 ­ it doesn't matter what area you're in ­ that are just junk. And if you're throwing away good songs to learn some junk, well, I never would do that. If I got lots of requests for something or if it touched me, I'd learn it, and if it didn't, I didn't bother with learning it."

"So, I don't know anything, but a bunch of good old songs. And they were written, most of them, before 'television, when people had more time to concentrate on what they were trying to say and to tell stories. That kind of shaped my life, listening to that old music years ago. It taught me how to live. I remember one song, I'd like to record it some day, called 'Rocking Alone In An Old Rocking Chair.' The first time I heard that, I was just a little boy, and I said 'boy, I won't ever let my grandmother be alone like that.' These songs taught me things that were true, that were good to live by."

For Walser, living by the things he learned from the country music he grew up on meant putting his family first.

Though he had some success with his musical career back in the late 1950's and early 1960's, he chose the security of a full-time job with the Texas National Guard over the uncertainties of a musician's life until his children were grown and he had reached retirement age.

That may help to explain why he realized one of his biggest goals ­ to play the Grand Ole Opry ­ just last year. łOh, that was even more exciting than I expected," he laughs. łI just grinned all the time I was there."

"I always had two goals," Walser recalls, łto play at the Opry and at Cain's Ballroom (in Tulsa), where Bob Wills was. And the first time I played Cain's Ballroom, I saw Cindy Walker's picture on the wall, and I told the guy there, 'I sure wish I could meet her someday, she's written so many wonderful songs.' He said, 'well, let's just go call her,' and we did. I talked to her for about an hour, and I told her, 'I've done Cain's, and now I want to do the Grand Ole Opry, and I'll have my goals in life finished.'"

Walker tried to get a friend at TNN to book Walser on the show, but without success, but that wasn't the end of the story. łA new guy (Opry General Manager Pete Fisher) came in," he says, łand he did it. That's the way I got on it."

Though he's tagged as łAmericana" or łalternative country," Walser says that mainstream country ­ łI call it soft rock," he chuckles ­ doesn't bother him in and of itself, and he appreciates the way the Opry covers all the musical bases.

"Just because I don't like something don't mean that other people don't like it," he opines. łI'm not like a lot of other people; I don't want to see that music go away. If it comes from the heart, no matter what it is ­ if it's rockabilly or rock or what I consider that soft rock ­ well, there are people who love it, you know, and who am I to say that it's not good music?

Because if it's coming from the heart, that's the way it ought to be, it ought to have an outlet, people ought to be able to hear it. I just wish the same thing for the real country music," he laughs ruefully. łThe thing that I don't like is not so much that the soft rock has taken over the country scene, but that they just pushed the real country out. I've been singing country for 50 years, and all of a sudden I'm alternative country. That's not right."

"You know, rock 'n' roll's got about five different formats, stations that play different rock, rockabilly and all these different things, but country's got one thing, and it's not country. It's not altogether bad, but those young - and I'm not too worried about Merle Haggard and those guys, they're still recording, they're not getting played. but they've got the fan base out there that they can live off of for the rest of their lives ­ but the young people who are trying to do real country have got no outlet except Americana and college radio and public radio, and that's wrong. There's a real hunger for it, too. I don't know who controls all that, but it's got to be controlled."

Still, Walser's tickled to have a new album out, and happy with his recent National Heritage Award, presented to him in Washington in September.

"It was a real honor to be put in the company of guys like Doc Watson and B.B. King," he says. Honors aside, though, Walser's still as down-to-earth as ever.

Asked about his guitar, he laughs again and launches into another story. łI've had it ever since about 1959 or 1960, and I've sent it back to the factory twice. Once, when we moved out to El Paso, it started cracking all over ­ it's real dry out there ­ and I sent it back and had them fix the cracks, and then it was in a wreck, and it got messed up. Well, I was talking to Hank Thompson, who had a guitar that he had just had redone, and I said 'Hank, they tell me that if you do that, they're not worth as much.' He said, 'hell, I don't care, Don, I'm the only one that's going to play it anyway.' And I said, 'you know, you're right, and so I sent it back and had them completely refinish it, and it looks like it did when it was new. It may not be worth as much as it was, but I'm the only that's going to be playing it anyway."