To be eligible for this list of the 45 greatest Texas recordings of all time, a song must have been performed by a Texan or had a location in the state as its subject matter.
1. “THAT’LL BE THE DAY” by Buddy Holly and the Crickets (1957). Perhaps the most influential single in the history of rock ‘n’ roll, Holly’s first smash hit provided the model for the gtr-gtr-bs-drms format that would rule pop music for decades. (The Beatles name was a play on The Crickets.) And he wrote it himself, something pop acts didn’t do back then.
2. “HE STOPPED LOVING HER TODAY” by George Jones (1980). An epic of emotion from the East Texas flat-top who became country music’s best-ever singer. While he was going through rehab many years ago, his voice could’ve been his higher power because it certainly wasn’t bound by gravity.
3. “I FOUGHT THE LAW” by the Bobby Fuller Four (1966). Written by Sonny Curtis (who would later pen “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” theme) and originally recorded by the post-Buddy Holly Crickets, the definitive version was by these guitar-rockers from El Paso.
4. “DARK WAS THE NIGHT (COLD WAS THE GROUND)” by Blind Willie Johnson (1927). The moaning instrumental Ry Cooder calls “the most soulful, transcendent piece in all American music” was recorded in a warehouse in Dallas by an itinerant blind man from Marlin.
5. “CRAZY ARMS” by Ray Price (1956). Ray Price saw the landscape of Southern music change before his eyes when Elvis Presley, “the Hillbilly Cat,” opened for him in Memphis is 1955. By the next year, many established country acts were leaning more rockabilly, but not Price. Instead, he invented a new country dance rhythm with this song and kept the Texas in country music. The 4/4 “Ray Price Beat” has never stopped moving two-steppers counterclockwise.
6. “YOU’RE GONNA MISS ME” by 13th Floor Elevators (1966). Psychedelia is born as the region rocks to a new soul shouter named Roky Erickson.
7. “EL PASO” by Marty Robbins (1959). Quite a storytelling feat by singer/writer Robbins, giving a musical movie plot in four minutes, and with Grady Martin’s exotic guitar, you can almost feel the spirit of border town love.
8. “BLUE EYES CRYIN’ IN THE RAIN” by Willie Nelson (1975). An early look at Willie’s interpretive genius, as he lifts those beautiful Fred Rose lyrics (“Love is like a dying ember/ Only memories remain/ Through the ages I’ll remember/ Blue eyes crying in the rain.”) It’s 2:17 that anchors a concept album (Red Headed Stranger), a sign of Stardust to come.
9. “LA GRANGE” by ZZ Top (1973). A classic-rock eternal that never fails to bring out the air guitars. I don’t think I’ve experienced a second of sadness while “La Grange” is blasting on the radio. Who cares if they stole the riff from John Lee Hooker? His estate’s getting paid while we get the payoff.
10. “MIND PLAYIN’ TRICKS ON ME” by Geto Boys (1991). Pouring their paranoia over a slinky Isaac Hayes sample, the G.B.’s took gangsta rap to a headier space than on their earlier LPs. Scarface, Bushwick and Willie D had been makin’ trouble for years in H-Town, but this track put the Deep South (later “Dirty South”) sound on the worldwide radar.
11. “ONLY THE LONELY” by Roy Orbison (1960). This West Texan master of operatic pop set the stage for his solitary man persona with this majestic hit. “There goes my baby/There goes my heart,” he croons, as the drums snap a cold cadence. Orbison’s first hit on Monument Records, after failing at Sun, made a huge impact in the years between Elvis and the Beatles.
12. “PIECE OF MY HEART” by Janis Joplin (1968). Never has vulnerability sounded so powerful as when this outcast from Port Arthur got her revenge. This Jarry Ragavoy/ Bert Berns song, originally cut by Aretha’s older sister Erma, put Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company at #12 on the Billboard pop singles chart and its never left classic rock radio playlists.
13. “HONKY TONK HEROES” by Waylon Jennings (1973). This revved-up version of the Billy Joe Shaver song proved Waylon to be the Elvis Presley of country music, a forceful vocalist who made every song he touched his own. The album of the same name joins Shotgun Willie and Jerry Jeff Walker’s Viva Terlingua as the three LPs from ‘73 that changed country music for the better. (Update: it’s changed back.)
Lydia Mendoza
14. “MAL HOMBRE” by Lydia Mendoza (1936). A young Mexican woman with a 12-string guitar in San Antonio created a worldwide anthem with a song about a bad man. Women didn’t perform solo back then, but Mendoza saw that as the best way to get her powerful presentation across.
15. “GEORGIA ON A FAST TRAIN” by Shaver (1993). The version from the exceptional Tramp On Your Street LP rocks harder than anything on this list west of “La Grange.” Billy Joe just wants some respect for all he’s gone through and when he urges his guitarist son to “throw down, Eddy!” he’s demanding it by the throat.
16. “TIGHTEN UP” by Archie Bell and the Drells (1968). This song should be credited also to the TSU Toronados, a group of Texas Southern students, who recorded the instrumental hook days before Bell and the Drells stepped inside the studio to provide chatter and introductions.
17. “SEE THAT MY GRAVE’S KEPT CLEAN” by Blind Lemon Jefferson (1927). This native of the Mexia area was the first national star of country blues, beating all those Mississippi Delta guys from the fields to the record stores in 1925. By the end of 1929 he was dead, though nearly 100 recordings (including the Beatles-covered “Matchbox Blues”) live on. His “guide boys” around Deep Ellum included Lead Belly and T-Bone Walker.
18. “WALKIN’ THE FLOOR OVER YOU” by Ernest Tubb (1941). The ultimate honky tonk song and the first country hit to feature electric guitar. This is a dancehall anthem for the ages.
19. “PANCHO AND LEFTY” by Townes Van Zandt (1971). Dozens of great Townes songs are represented here by his most famous. The snitch gets a ditty and “federales” never sounded so cool.
20. “SAY MY NAME” by Destiny’s Child (2000). The first great single of the millenium, this hit from the Houston group’s second album also announced the arrival of Beyonce as a vocal innovator, with her syncopated rap-style creating a new way to swing.
21. “HOUSE OF BLUE LIGHTS” by Ella Mae Morse (1946). Not “Cow Cow Boogie,” the first-ever gold record for Capitol? Nah, this one, a collab with bandleader Freddie Slack swings harder, making full use of this Mansfield native’s elastic vocals. And that jive talk is really something from a white woman in the ‘40s.
22. “WOOLLY BULLY” by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs (1965). The rollicking Tex-Mex party anthem continues to fill dance floors and rack up speeding tickets. There’s just no more celebratory garage dance song. Dallas native Sam Samudio became a preacher soon after.
23. “BEFORE THE NEXT TEARDROP FALLS” by Freddy Fender (1975). Born Baldemar Huerta, Fender made his pop breakthrough with this No. 1 bi-lingual smash that topped not only country, but pop charts. Produced by Huey P. Meaux, who insisted Fender sing a country ballad when he just wanted to do rock and soul.
24. “IS ANYBODY GOIN’ TO SAN ANTONE” by Charley Pride (1970). A black man with an Afro singing country music during the Vietnam War would seem just a novelty, but the voice of the Mississippi native, who’s lived in Dallas since the ‘70s, just naturally fit this huge bounce of a country hit. Doug Sahm did a great version years later, playing up the barrio rhythm.
25. “IF YOU’VE GOT THE MONEY I’VE GOT THE TIME” by Lefty Frizzell (1950). This was the first recording by the Corsicana country boy with the jazz vocal phrasing, made at Jim Beck’s studio in Dallas, and it went right to #1. Lefty, Beck and the gang (with Madge Suttee on piano) made several more hit recordings on Ross Avenue, and it looked like Dallas was going to be a recording hub to rival Nashville, but that dream died when Beck (who co-wrote “If You’ve Got the Money” with Frizzell) was pronounced dead on May 3, 1956 after accidentally inhaling cleaning solvent at his studio.
26. “WOMAN BE WISE” by Sippie Wallace (1925). The Texas Nightingale, raised in Houston in a musical family which included boogie-woogie pioneers George W. and Hersal Thomas, recorded dozens of salty blues songs in the 1920s before giving her voice to the Lord. The model for Bonnie Raitt’s sassiness came from this gutbucket number about keeping good love to yourself.
27. “ELLIS UNIT ONE” by Steve Earle (1995). Springsteen got the title track to Dead Man Walking, but Earle buried him with this dark exploration of life in a prison town. Somehow this song remains obscure, but it’s up there with the best modern folk tunes.
28. “AMARILLO BY MORNING” by George Strait (1982). This fiddle-woven tune about the long drive home from a rodeo was a fixture on the Texas/Oklahoma country nightclub scene for 10 years (by co-writer Terry Stafford) before this kid from San Marcos covered it on his breakout LP Strait From the Heart.
29. “HELP ME MAKE IT THROUGH THE NIGHT” by Kris Kristofferson (1970). The devil’s in the details on this huge hit for Sammi Smith, which this Brownsville native reclaimed on his debut LP Kristofferson. Any of the other songs on the album, especially “Me and Bobby McGee,” “Sunday Morning Coming Down” and “For the Good Times” could make this list as well, but there’s a one-song-per-artist limit.
30. “NEW SAN ANTONIO ROSE” by Bob Wills (1940). A distillation of all that is pure Western Swing (though “Ida Red” was a close second in the Wills slot for providing the pattern for Chuck Berry’s “Maybelline”). And it’s got San Antonio in the title!
31. “GALVESTON” by Glen Campbell (1969). Jimmy Webb’s subtle anti-war song about a soldier who just wants to go home was recently named #8 on CMT’s list of the 100 Greatest Songs In Country Music. The city with the seawall certainly can’t complain about the song they got.
32. “CHICKEN SHACK BOOGIE” by Amos Milburn (1948). This Houston piano thumper made a lot of great jump blues records about getting wasted (“One Bourbon, One Shot, One Beer” was his original). This is the record for Alladin that got things going.
33. “HARPER VALLEY P.T.A.” by Jeannie C. Riley (1968). This song of small town hypocrisy, written by Tom T. Hall, became the hit of the year by this singer from Anson, Texas.
Barbara Lynn
34. “YOU’LL LOSE A GOOD THING” by Barbara Lynn (1962). Another Meaux discovery, this left-handed guitarist from Beaumont straddled the border between Texas and Louisiana with this Top Tenner that shook up a stale national music scene for a while.
35. “TREAT HER RIGHT” by Roy Head and the Traits (1965). Formed from San Marcos High classmates, the Traits reached #2 on the Billboard singles chart with this horn-driven rock/soul workout, but were leapfrogged by the Beatles for the top spot when “Yesterday” replaced “Help!” at No. 1. There may have been a little riff larceny involved, as “Treat Her” takes the chords from 1964’s “You Really Got Me,” but it was released on Don Robey’s Back Beat label, which wasn’t big on paying others. Head was Texas’ answer to Tom Jones on this one.
36. “T FOR TEXAS” by Jimmie Rodgers (1928). Also known as “Blue Yodel #1,” this tune was recorded by “The Singing Brakeman”at Trinity Baptist Church in Camden, NJ, and did so well that Rodgers used royalty money to build a house in Kerrville in 1929. Having contracted tuberculosis a couple years earlier, he moved to Texas for the climate and lived here until he died in 1933.
37. “WILD SIDE OF LIFE” by Hank Thompson (1952). First recorded by Jimmy Heap and the Melody Masters from Taylor, this became a huge hit for Waco-born honky tonker Thompson, topping the Billboard country single chart for 15 straight weeks. Even the answer song, Kitty Wells’ “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels,” made it to #1. Credited to songwriters Arlie Carter and William Warren, the melody is a straight rip from Roy Acuff’s “Great Speckled Bird” and he probably took it from somewhere else.
Freddie King photo by Scott Newton.
38. “SHE’S ABOUT A MOVER” by the Sir Douglas Quintet (1965). Originally titled “She’s a Body Mover,” this song is a raucous patchwork of Ray Charles soul, West Side San Antonio groove and hippie naivete. Producer Meaux dressed them like Brits, but there was no mistaking where this chunk o’ fun came from (especially since some of the members were clearly Latino.)
39. “GOING DOWN” by Freddie King (1971). Gilmer native King had ripped better on other tracks –“Hideaway,” “Have You Ever Loved a Woman,” “Remington Ride,” “In the Open,” etc. — but this one gets the nod for the stamina to survive so many bad barroom versions. Nice piano by Leon Russell, too.
40. DALLAS” by Joe Ely (1972). “Have you ever seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night” is as great an opening line as there is (by Jimmie Gilmore), and Ely keeps up the intrigue with his heel-grinding delivery. A song about the danger beyond the glitz.
41. “LOST HIGHWAY” by Leon Payne (1948). Written on the side of the road by a blind hitchiker, this tune from Alba’s Payne (who studied music at Austin’s school for the blind) has inspired a record label, a TV series and one of Hank Williams’ most enduring performances. Also, Dylan sang the tune with Joan Baez in an informal scene in the documentary Don’t Look Back.
42. “JOLE BLON” by Harry Choates (1947). The Cajun national anthem was given its definitive version by a wild-eyed fiddler from Port Arthur.
Ivory Joe Hunter
43. “SINCE I MET YOU BABY” by Ivory Joe Hunter (1956). Though this Kirbyville native, sometimes billed “The Happiest Man Alive” had several earlier R&B hits, this was the only one to cross over to the pop charts. Freddy Fender perhaps recorded the definitive version, but let’s give it up to the creator of the blues ballad that meets rock ‘n’ roll head on and doesn’t flinch.
44. “HE’LL HAVE TO GO” by Jim Reeves (1959). The velvet singer from Panola County achieved a rarity with this song, which helped usher in the pop/country era with its vocal harmonies. Not only was it #1 on the country chart for 14 weeks, but it hit #2 on Billboard pop and #13 on the R&B singles chart!
45. “HONKY-TONK MAN” by Johnny Horton (1956). Best-known today as the single that launched Dwight Yoakam’s career, it was originally recorded by this East Texan, who would go on to greater success with historical songs such as “Battle of New Orleans” and “North To Alaska.” Horton was killed by a drunken driver in Milano, TX in 1960 after playing the Skyline Club in Austin. In an eery coincidence, his widow Billie Jean was married to Hank Williams when he played his final public concert at the Skyline eight years earlier.