Smoked Meat and Country Music: Houston Rodeo Cookoff

Tom Donahue, Bellaire Boys

  The weather has been cold every year I’ve attended the World's Championship Bar-B-Que Contest, preceding the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo – always on a Friday.
  Like last year, when I was among 244,185 people, almost all clutching invitations to specific tents, fighting cold, bitter winds all three days for a shot at eating like a real cowboy. And darned if there didn’t appear to be more participants at this year’s event.

Greg Moore of Rotten Wood Cookers

  When I checked the final count, the 84,257 happy people around me beat last year’s Friday night by over 500. In fact, each night was a record attendance, preceding the world's largest livestock show.

  I could believe, as I watched the thousands around me smile, greet, and embrace each other, that there’s more than the world’s finest smoked meat drawing my fellows to these tents buffeting in the breeze.

  The first invitation I had was to Rotten Wood Cookers, where a merrily toiling band has, in the past, taken Grand Champion over all the other entries with their chicken. So when the chicken comes out of the smoker, team member Greg Moore yells, “Chicken’s out!”
  Everyone comes running.

Jim Davis, Bellaire Boys

  Do understand this! When you take Grand Champion in a cookoff of this magnitude, as Rotten Wood Cookers has done, it’s the team’s ticket to superstar cooking events. That includes major cooking competitions such as the Jack Daniels. I believe this team will be there again, soon, and come away a champion.

  The Bellaire Boys cooking team has won many awards. I can’t understand why they don’t take top prize for ribs every year at this giant competition, because I’ve never had better. I really appreciate the hospitality the team affords me at their tent, especially the friendly greeting I get from hardworking team members, including Tom Donahue, Jim Davis, and Larry Gardner, who were so  kind to give me an invitation.
  I watch how hard they work in cooking teams as Rotten Wood and Bellaire Boys, cooking, serving, cleaning, and seeing to the enjoyment of their guests. I wonder how they muster the energy to smile. But they do. And they keep producing their wonderful offerings, serving after serving.

  There are some teams that compete in food, but also excel in party. Every year, I hear enthusiastic reviews of the party thrown by Texas Cowtown Cookers. 

  They had the only tent that had a line to get in, everyone clutching their special invitations.
  Any bar-b-que event that offers a beautiful crème brûlée for dessert is worth at least a look! The Texas Cowtown Cookers do, plus apple cobbler, banana pudding, and something called apple pie moonshine.
I soon discovered that their musical entertainment, signed for both Friday and Saturday nights, was also a big part of the draw.

Jake Kellen, right, with band

 It was the Jake Kellen Band. I encountered Jake first about five years ago, when country music fans began pulling his CD and singles off ITunes and Amazon, as well as catching him live around Texas. I immediately took to his ballads such as Take Me Home and College Days.
  My favorite is Bullet Proof, where he tells the bartender to set them up, get ready for that pretty girl to come, “Cause 12 a.m., I turn into George Strait.”

  I was told Jake was roots country. So as I watched the Cowtown Cookers stage, I was amazed as Jake Kellen and band moved with ease through many different genres of country music, including Bakersfield, Outlaw, Red Dirt, and Roots.
  At one point, Jake called up a guest guitarist who began a dueling lead guitar session, then pulled off a wonderful Stevie Ray Vaughn number with the musicians. The Cowtown Cookers and guests enjoyed a star-quality concert that everyone could dance to.
  “This is Jake’s first time at a Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo event,” reports John Rufini, one of the hardworking coordinators of Cowtown Cookers. “He’s a really good guy and very enthusiastic. I think we’ll see him back next year!”
  If you weren’t as fortunate as me to catch Jake and band live at this event, this YouTube video will give you an idea of what a quality performance the Texas Cowtown Cookers enjoyed.

  As far as their reputation among the great party entertainers at this event, John emphasizes that the team really does work to win.
  “We do like to complete,” he assures me. “But we also make a point of having a great party for our friends.”
If this competition is the world’s biggest backyard bar-b-que, that’s the feeling that Cowtown Cookers is looking to reinforce. And John agrees, as I discovered and mentioned earlier in this post, that there's a lot more going on here than outstanding cookery.
  “We like to establish long-term relationships,” John says. “We’re a close family of friends and colleagues. Everyone contributes and the sweet desserts and baked goods are brought in by our members and their spouses. Just like having cookies at your Mom’s house.”
  Some of the team members are outstanding photographers and videographers. Be sure to check the Texas Cowtown Cookers Website after its upgrade, directed by John, in a few weeks and you’ll see what everyone is raving about.
  And if Jake Kellen and his outstanding brand of entertainment become part of those long-term relationships, many will want to join together for bar-b-que and fellowship in this backyard for a long time to come.

Coming soon: Kenny Chesney, Football, and Spreadsheet Mathematics

Get ready to hear this at a football stadium near you soon. A lot!

“Knocking heads and talking trash. It’s slinging mud and dirt and grass.”

That’s from Kenny Chesney’s ballad, The Boy’s of Fall. This song from his excellent Hemingway’s Whiskey album has been off the charts and all but silenced on radio airwaves for almost a year. But it will be back on the Public Address systems of stadiums from the NFL to Middle School in the coming weeks.

You may even see the school’s dance teams try to bust a few moves during  this tune.

“You mess with one man, you’ve got us all!”

In the meantime, since neither you nor I are doing the singing, dancing, nor ballplaying, is there a way we can garner a little attention from our fellow fans during the game?

Thanks to years of numbers crunching by math-minded fans of American Rules football, we can form a strong opinion about any game on any level, if we have four numbers, accumulated by your teams so far this season. Also, jot down how many games each team has played.

Prior to heading to the stadium, check the league Website, school athletics pages, or the local paper for these numbers. You’re looking for your team’s total points scored and their total offensive yards. If available, also get their defensive points allowed, and the defensive yards allowed. If these numbers aren’t available, then you will have to substitute the corresponding offensive numbers from the opposing team.

Now get your favorite spreadsheet software, and you will soon have a learned opinion of the upcoming game even if you’ve never seen the teams before! We’ll apply some Yards-per-Point analysis formulas to the totals that have been honed during the past three decades.

Let’s make our favorite team the Wolves, and the opposing team the Bulls.

Start putting some numbers in your spreadsheet program cells.

We’ll give the Wolves these numbers for their season so far: 3,845 offensive yards, 5,022 defensive yards allowed, 186 offensive points, and 328 defensive points allowed. For the Bulls, we’ll do 5,106 offensive yards, 5,028 defensive yards, 383 offensive points and 278 defensive points allowed.

 Add the Wolves’ offensive yards to the Bulls’ defensive yards allowed (3,844+5,028=8,872). Then add the Wolves’ points scored to the Bulls’ points allowed (186+278=464).

Now do this for the Bulls. First add the yards (5,106+5,022=10,128) and points (383+377=760).

It’s not looking great for our team. Is it?

In your favorite spreadsheet program, place the numbers in cells, and then run a few formulas on them.

First, we want to get what I call a Yards-per-Point Factor  for each team. For the Wolves, divide the yards by the points, delivering a factor of 19.12. Do the same for the Bulls, and you’ll get a factor of 13.33. I have my spreadsheet software round the numbers to two decimals. You don’t need to round if you don’t want to.

Then we compute average yards for each team by taking the same yards numbers, but dividing them by games played so far this season. In this case, let’s make them pro teams, and have them on their Game 16. So divide the Wolves and Bulls yardage by 30 (15 games each) and get 295.75 for the Wolves and 337.6 for the Bulls.

With that done, we finish. Divide each team’s Yards Factor by the Yards-per –Point Factor – round that number to a whole number if you wish – to get a projected score.  I project that the Bulls beat my Wolves team by 10, something like 26-16.

The projected score almost never will occur in real life. Neither will running these numbers on a spreadsheet make us Vegas-class handicappers (Please see note from a Real Life Sports Handicapper at the end of this post).  Not taken into account with this system are field conditions, weather, injuries, and a Pandora’s Box of other factors that professional scouts and prognosticators all gather, with great effort, on a daily basis.

But once these numbers and the related formulas are put into my spreadsheet, I can gather those several totals, and make an educated projection of the game. When others ask, I tell them, “My Yards-per-Point analysis says the Bulls win by 10.”

I don’t include the score, because that actually matches only rarely.

So even if you’re not familiar with the teams, or maybe even the sport, get those totals and dazzle your friends with your powers of analysis this season. And remember what blog got you started.

His great football song is no longer on the charts, but remember when you hear Kenny Chesney sing it on your stadium PA system:

 “I’ve got your number, got your back when your back’s against the wall.”


SPECIAL NOTE FROM A REAL-LIFE SPORTS HANDICAPPER:


This post is an official entry in the ScottsPicks.com Sports Writing Contest. Anyone can enter if you can tie it to sports in some way - and if a country music blog can write about football handicapping kind of like they do at Scotts Picks then you, too, can enter today!

The Burritos: Sound as Ever

This is a very likable record, and true to the band's name, includes some Gram Parsons covers.

Walter Egan produced the record and performs, including a song he co-wrote with the late Parsons, Carolina Calypso.

My favorite track is Build a Fire, which is one of two among the 15 songs that attempts to take the Burritos legacy somewhere new – in this case, approaching a Red Dirt style.

“When you feel in danger and starting to lose, strike a match, you go a-lighting a fuse. Change. Change your situation.”

Another track that flirts with going somewhere a bit different is How Can You Lose (What You Never Had). It ever so briefly toys with bluegrass styling, but gives in to good ole country rock.

The rest of the album pays tribute to standard 1970s country-rock, as the solid Call It Love, and adds some R&B styling with Out of Left Field, plays with a lot of rock, and a little traditional country.

Anyone looking for a new Burritos record has found it, and with some pioneering country-rock credentials. Besides Egan, the quartet includes Rick Lonow, Chris James and Fred James. You can look ‘em up.

This is not a Burritos entry that reaches a new plateau. It certainly plays just fine where it is.

The theme of this project can be found in Beggars Banquet:

“Raise your glasses to this broke down palace where every beggar has a day. And Here’s  a toast to the hardworking people who don’t get rich, but pave the way.”

And especially:

 “We don’t dine at the richest table. But this beggar’s banquet is just fine.”

With a world filled with uncertainty in every corner, and bad news on every station, can we just enjoy a finely produced country rock record with excellent instrumentation, and good songwriting and vocals?

For my ears, this banquet is just fine.

Lindi Ortega: Little Red Boots

Her 12 frequently playful tracks rarely stray far from a danceable beat, while paying tribute to country roots. She persistently offers challenging lyrics, such as in Jimmy Dean, which speaks as the film actor’s ghost.

“Hey little boy, don’t you know my name?  September of 1955, it was 24 years 'til the day I died. You know my face from the Hollywood silver screen. I was just looking for another fast ride; I didn't think I wouldn't make it back alive.”

The Canadian singer-songwriter continues through the subjects of Elvis Presley, personal relationships, and her signature boots of the title track.

While she brings a pleasingly strong voice to the table, she’s not shy about using classic close harmony to get her message across, or pausing to let us appreciate her songs' rich arrangements and solos from the talented instrumentalists.

There’s even a couple of rich ballads, as the slow number, So Sad, which I could picture bringing down the house at a great Louisiana R&B/Swamp Pop festival, and Black Fly:

“Before you go, just one last taste – one for the road and our mistakes. For Tupelo, the sweetest taste, lay down beside me and drink away.”

I hope for many more tastes of Lindi’s music.

William Elliott Whitmore: Field Songs

Question: What impact would this artist have with the backing musicians of, say, classic Ray Price? His answer to that question would probably be this record. And I can’t take my ears off of it.

There is no Ray Price Orchestra here.  One of his most striking of Whitmore’s eight tracks is Don’t Need It, and that sets the record’s theme, if not his own mission.  The tracks contain only his voice, sparsely accompanied by guitar and banjo – on one natural sounds open and, on another track, a bass drum beat marches.

Everything Gets Gone is typical of the stark impact and powerful symbolism of his songs.

“On a gravel road, about a mile down, there’s an old farmhouse with a fence around. The windows are broken. The roof is falling in. It’s never gonna be a home again. Like shutters in the wind, I’m holding on.”

With a song collection this wonderful, it’s easy for me to imagine that the Ray Price Orchestra is here while Whitmore performs, still, silent, and hypnotized, wondering what picture the artist will show us next.

With the absence of the excessive accompaniment common today, each song’s essence is amplified for listeners.

With the orchestra ready to perform, Whitmore reminds, “I don’t need it. Don’t need it at all.”

And it's true. We don't!

Another Visit With Gram Parsons

Several readers have asked me for more information about my recent visit to Gram Parsons’ resting place.

The spot is near New Orleans in the Garden of Memories Cemetery, Metairie, Louisiana (Jefferson Parish).

Most requests were for a closer look at his beautiful, elaborate marker, and a listing of what’s printed on it. The marker bears an amazing image of Gram on stage.

"Gram Parsons, Nov. 7, 1946-Sept. 19, 1973"

“Another young man safely strummed his silver-string guitar.

And he played to people everywhere.

Some say he was a star

But he was just a country boy.

His simple songs confess, and the music he had in him, so very few possess.”

"From 'In My Hour of Darkness' "

“Your soul lives on through your music.

Your spirit lives on in our hearts.”

One question is, since Gram is resting near New Orleans, what on earth is he doing in-ground? Please don’t be concerned! Gram is well outside New Orleans and it’s infamous below-sea-level ‘bowl.’ He is in an area where it’s common for loved ones to be laid to rest in-ground.

 That being said, there remains one in-ground cemetery near New Orleans City Park. The Holt Cemetery, owned by the city, was established in 1897 and burials are still going on there. Loved ones’ families, and many groups including the Funeral Service Education students at Delgado Community College next door to the site, work hard to restore the plots that need help and are suffering damage and deterioration.

Let’s get back to Gram!

Gram’s passage from the place of his death, the Joshua Tree National Park in California, to South Louisiana, was bizarre and tragic. The biographies suggested to you in the previous visit will fill you in on the startling details.

If you’d also like a fictionalized, motion picture account, Johnny Knoxville and Christina Applegate star in an entertaining one from 2003: Grand Theft Parsons.



 The film begins with Gram’s death, and then attempts to be a comedy! It has been hard for many of Gram's fans to watch, but I believe this could be an excellent entry point to interest your uninitiated friends in the music. Several excellent duets with Emmylou Harris are featured in the film.

Thanks for sharing your love of country music’s past, including Gram Parsons. And thanks for participating in country music’s present, and for helping build our beloved music’s future.

See you next post!

Reflections: A Visit With Gram Parsons

Although his career was too short, he was such an influential musician, that in the psychedelic 1960s, he talked one of the most successful rock bands into releasing a country music record.

Gram Parsons, who lies beside me here in eternal rest (picture by Carolle G.) is that influential musician. Gram got the Eight Miles High band, The Byrds, to release Sweetheart of the Rodeo. They then took him along to support the record with an international tour.

I’ve talked with Byrds fans who bought that vinyl record, including some who still have it. They’re still confused!

The Parsons Mission was to convince young music fans that country music – Cosmic American Music as he called it – was worth taking to heart.

This mission paled compared to his other purpose – to convince the country music establishment and legions of hard-core fans that they could open their hearts to musicians like him. Those musicians were adding new twists to their country songs, including distortion on the pedal steel guitar and a more-enthusiastic drumbeat.

This brought The Byrds to the Grand Ole Opry, where a very young Marty Stuart (who later covered some of Gram’s songs) saw Parsons backstage and described him as a “mess,” before witnessing a somewhat cold reception by the audience. After falling off the Byrds roster, Parsons brought his musicians to some of the hardcore redneck stages around Los Angeles.

This was a tough row for Parsons to hoe, and was a harder assignment than, say, Bob Dylan releasing Blonde on Blonde or Nashville Skyline to his existing audience.

  We lost Gram to his abuse of drugs and alcohol in 1973, and he never got to see how things turned out.




His frequent duet partner, the great Emmylou Harris, sings about him in The Road, “How could I see a future then where you would not grow old?” Gram would have had to grow old, to see whether his dream would come true.

Gram rests in an easy-to-find area of the Garden of Memories in Metairie, Louisiana called Garden of the Last Supper. He’s happy to receive visitors whenever the grounds are open.

A group of biographies cover the details of Gram’s life. I especially love Grievous Angel: An Intimate Biography of Gram Parsons by Jessica Hundley and Gram’s daughter, Polly Parsons. Amazon carries several excellent anthologies of his music.

Enjoy your journey!