BUDDY MAGAZINE

Johnny Bush

Kashmere Gardens Mud: A Tribute to Houston’s Country Soul

Ice House Music

The opening song "Kashmere Gardens Mud" sets the stage for rest of this tribute CD with its memories of a broken-promises home in a broken-promises neighborhood in the 1940s at what was the beginning of the atomic age, when the preacher told his congregation that the end was near. The song takes an unexpected, personal turn that leads Johnny Bush into 14 more songs mostly about love, loneliness, and even eternity of one sort or another.

While the title song is as much folk as it is country, most of the rest of the CD is filters a range of Texas influences through a solid honky-tonk base. Former Houston Chronicle music critic Rick Mitchell produced the CD and co-wrote the Bush biography, Whiskey River (Take My Mind): The True Story of Texas Honky-Tonk, to be published March 1 by University of Texas Press. Mitchell came up with the album’s concept: honoring classic country musicians from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s with Houston ties while also recognizing the city’s diverse ethnic influences including Cajun, Tejano, and various African-American sounds. A couple of the songs feature distinct big-band treatments.

Bush wrote Willie Nelson’s signature show-starter "Whiskey River" and his own hits including "There Stands the Glass" and "Undo the Right." He’s almost as well known for the neurological disorder spasmodic dysphonia that almost killed his career, but that he overcame with groundbreaking medical treatments.

Bush’s classically distinctive country voice supports the strong interpretations that sound like he means each word of each song, from the Ray Charles hit "Born to Lose" to Nelson’s "Family Bible" to a slower, twin-fiddle instrumental version of "Jole Blon" that never loses any of the original’s joy.

Musicians on the project included Nelson, Frenchie Burke, Jesse Dayton, Paul English, John Evans, Bobby Flores, Calvin Owens, Dale Watson, Bert Wills, and more. However long it took to record this CD, it sounds like it was a lot of fun to do.

– Tom Geddie