by Edd Hurt

In a 1979 live performance of his “From Tennessee to Texas,” Johnny Bush sang about his relationship to Nashville in a way that seemed to make his loyalties clear. “The people there were cold / Even in the heat of summer / They think anything from Texas / Is full of wind and sand,” Bush sang over a brisk shuffle. Yet the Houston native’s career has intersected with the Nashville music industry in fascinating ways, and raises questions about the nature of country music.

Bush’s new record, Kashmere Gardens Mud: A Tribute to Houston’s Country Soul, appears simultaneously with an autobiography, Whiskey River (Take My Mind): The True Story of Texas Honky-Tonk. Both clarify the career of a man known for his superb baritone and his struggles with spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological condition that caused Bush to lose his voice as he was achieving renown as the writer and singer of “Whiskey River,” one of country’s emblematic songs. Although he has never been forgotten by hardcore country fans and is beloved in Texas, Bush remains a figure whose achievements defy categorization.

Born John Bush Shinn III on Feb. 17, 1935, he changed his name at the suggestion of a Texas club owner. Bush grew up in a poor section of northeast Houston called Kashmere Gardens. “The area is still there,” Bush says, “and they still call it Kashmere Gardens. But the Kashmere Gardens that was there when I was growing up is no longer there. The streets are paved, there are sidewalks and it’s totally black now.”

KASHMERE GARDENS MUD: A TRIBUTE TO HOUSTON’S COUNTRY SOUL
Johnny Bush (Icehouse Music)

Bush absorbed the honky-tonk country of performers such as Lefty Frizzell and Floyd Tillman along with the rhythm-and-blues of Louis Jordan. “Oh, man, there was some black stations on at night,” Bush recalls. “And my uncle and I would get in there with the door closed so nobody would know it and listen to these stations. We were grooving on that.”

Playing tough Texas nightclubs, Bush learned to play drums and started singing professionally. He made his first record in 1958, and in 1963 began drumming in Ray Price’s renowned band, The Cherokee Cowboys. That fall, he moved to Nashville, where he experienced culture shock.

“I was a Cherokee Cowboy, the swingingest band in town,” Bush writes in Whiskey River. “I was used to Texas, where there were clubs and dance halls where you could hear a live band. You couldn’t hear anything in Nashville unless you went to [pedal-steel player] Buddy Emmons’ house. He’d call a bunch of guys over, and you’d have a jam session.”