Austin Sound

Austin’s blues scene is alive and well in no small part to Eddie Stout and Dialtone Records. While our blues patriarchs like Pinetop Perkins continue the tradition, a new crop of young guns has been cultivated around the Dialtone imprint to carry the sound into the twenty-first century. The local label has become an outlet for new material from legends like Joe Ducet, Bells of Joy, and the Texas Southside Kings, as well as up and coming artists like those gathered among the Texas Northside Kings. This Thursday, March 13, Dialtone Records presents it’s official SXSW showcase at Lambert’s, featuring Orange Jefferson and Thierry Cognee, Joe Ducett, Spot Barnett with O.S. Grant, the Westside Horns, Little Joe Washington, Texas Northside Kings, Texas Eastside Kings, Ray Reed, and Joe Jonas. The showcase kicks off at 8:00pm and will be one not to miss. For more information on Dialtone, see their official website.

In 1933, at the behest of the Library of Congress, Texas-raised folklorist John Lomax and his son Alan set out on a ten-year odyssey through America’s back roads. Armed with a bulky portable recording device, the father and son duo toured the country collecting what have now become legendary recordings by rural blues and folk artists, including the very first sessions ever waxed with legendary bluesman McKinley Morganfield, better known around the world as Muddy Waters.

Eddie Stout, owner of Austin’s indie blues label Dialtone Records, never fails to set the bar one notch higher with each new release. Right on the heels of the two stellar Texas blues records he put out this month (by Joe Doucet and the Texas Southside Kings) comes this new gem, his second recording of the legendary Bells of Joy. This group of veteran Texas gospel singers originally formed way back in the 1940s (back then they were called the Starlight Singers). Their 1951 debut sold over a million copies and they scored a #1 Billboard hit on the R&B charts with “Let’s Talk About Jesus.” For an amazing re-recording of that number, check out their 1998 Dialtone release Second Time Around.

A lot of names have become synonymous with Texas blues: Lightnin’ Hopkins, Freddie King, T-Bone Walker, the great Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown. Hell, even Robert Johnson recorded his only two sessions of material in the Lone Star State. Many others, like our deeply-missed friend Clifford Antone, dedicated their lives to promoting this great art form. While Antone’s record label has all but faded into obscurity over the past decade, one lone indie blues label dedicated to all things Texas has emerged in its wake. Look out Austin, cuz as Chicago harp slinger Junior Wells used to say, there’s a new kid on the block.