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Tx Log
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Cabin
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| “Honky Tonks & Neon
Lights” by Big John Mills and the Texas Road Dawgs doesn’t pull any
punches and Mills really lives up to his moniker. Not only is he a
physically large man, but also has the large persona to pull it off, sort
of like a happy-go-lucky, musical John Wayne. It’s really not as
confusing as it sounds. With Mills, you can count on plenty of
humor, straight from the shoulder talk, and before you know it, he’s
slipped another song on you to which you almost forgot to listen.
Except that you really want to listen, darnit, because each line is a gem
and your foot is tapping of its own volition. I first met Big John at an acoustic performance he gave at Waxahachie’s Texas Music Theater (excellent venue!). He provided the most interesting commentary and changed hats (sometimes several times) for each selection. He set his large hat container on the stage beside his stool and used the hats to set the mood for the next selection, or just to shamelessly grab the laughs some of the hats were meant to generate. Mills shared with me that he has been collecting strange hats for some time, but started using them the day after the horrible trade center attack to help cheer up his audience. It worked so well that he’s kept it, especially when playing acoustically. John Mills started his musical pursuits at a fairly early age. At around 12 he was playing lead guitar and was adding vocals by 18. He was born in Frankfurt, Germany (Army brat), but got to Texas as soon as he could. Mills says he’s been influenced in his music by Merle Haggard, Bob Wills, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Johnny Bush, Ray Price, and Buck Owens, to name just a few. He plays guitar, bass, drums, piano, mandolin, and harmonica and classifies his music as Texas traditional honky tonk country. His record label is his own and he named it after his band, Roaddawg Records. Mills has been lucky enough to work full time with his music for about ten years and he keeps bookings about 4-5 per week. The Texas Road Dawgs are: Rodney Smith on drums and vocals, Glen Kay on bass, and Steve Richter on guitar and steel. In the live performance I had of “I See You for What You Are”, Mills explained that his original version contained an additional word at the end of each line because he wrote this for ex-wife 2 (or was it 3?). His producer talked him into trying the song without that continuously repetitive word, and that’s the version that appears on the CD. You know the word he’s thinking of… that witchy one that starts with a B. Listen to the track and you can visualize….. “Jim Beam and Jack Daniels (wrote my favorite songs)” holds true to his philosophy of song writing that all “come from my life, my friends lives, and from real experience.” Once the whiskey started working, the songs ran through my head. Jim Beam & Jack Daniels will make me rich or kill me dead.” JB, JD, and Big John Mills co-wrote just one more, I think. “When I Read Between the Lines” has a secret mystic meaning. The instructions for uncovering this mythological secret are as follows: Hold up your hand with all fingers in a full vertical extension and “read between the lines”. That’s the root of this selection. Good humored look at things that aren’t perfect. Only two selections were not authored or co-authored by Mills. He slows it down with “Today Ain’t Your Day” authored by friend, Leland Martin. It's a bluesy number that continues to express the fierce independent nature of all the music included in this collection. Martin takes the popular phrase of “I can only please one person a day and today ain’t your day” and builds several scenarios around that concept. Furthermore, “That door you just walked through swings both ways.” The other track authored by Martin is “She Rules the Roost.” As the song laments,
“I used to be the cock of the walk until that little chick came along I
used to strut, now I’m in a rut.”
“Guitars and Lone Star Beer, music in our hearts sincere, Texas traditions of football, rodeo, cold beer and baseball, Jerry Jeff at Gruene Hall, monster trucks in the Astrodome Country blues to southern rock, the outlaws down in Luckenbach in Texas Bob Wills is still the king.”
How
was he able to get all that in just one song? This one is a gotta-have. “…New outlaw in heaven, down here there’s just Willie and me.” The second duet is “Texas Nights” with Mills'
20 year friend and musical mentor, Clay Blaker, which by the way, produced
this CD. Once upon a time (so the song goes) a young musician was
sitting in a bar in Houston wondering if he’d ever go anywhere.
Several years later he is “beer drinking, hell raising, honky tonking,
neon lights” missing Texas nights from California, New York City, or
points in between. Did you recognize the CD title in that line?
That’s where it came from. “This morning you hopped out of bed and started to confess my heart skipped a beat, and jumped out of my chest Hopped into my pickup truck, skipped my favorite bar, and jumped out of town.” What a clever twist and play on words.
That’s one of the wonderful things about so much Texas Music, the lyrics
are such an important part of the music and DEMAND your attention. You can contact Big John Mills at
bigjohnmills@hotmail.com
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Big John Mills and the Texas Road Dawgs Honky Tonks & Neon Lights by TxLogCabin
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Texicana Music Central
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