Texas Songwriter Under Fire for Song About Missouri

A Texas singer-songwriter is facing backlash for writing and recording a song that isn't about Texas. Lubbock artist Wells Barton says he's had his current single, "She's Like Laredo,"  pulled from most Texas radio stations and he's been ridiculed on social media for the album cut "White River Hills," which chronicles a romance in the Missouri Ozarks.

"Traitor. Texas forever, bitch!" read a tweet from @txgirl696969 this past Friday, and that's one of the nicer responses Barton has received. He's also seen his previously ascending single drop off the charts when his album including "White River Hills" was released.

Barton is flummoxed by the situation. "Literally, all 97 songs I've ever written before were either about Texas or took place in Texas or were named after a city in Texas," he explained. "But it's like I cheated on my wife or something, writing about Missouri." Barton says he was touring through Missouri and Arkansas and simply thought the White River Hills area was beautiful and wanted to express it in song. He never expected his budding career to hit a brick wall because of it.

He's had bookings cancelled across Texas in the wake of the controversy. Someone even tore the "Don't Mess With Texas" sticker off his tour van. "Casey Donahew called and cursed me out," said Barton, shaking his head. "and Kevin Fowler pulled his tour bus up in front of my house and forced me to hand over all his CD's that I owned."

Apparently, Barton told us, there are only a certain number of acceptable locations in songs for artists of his ilk. Texas is always king. Oklahoma is fine sometimes. Louisiana will work for songs with zydeco instrumentation. Mexico, of course, is great. Nobody writes songs about Arkansas. Deviation from these unwritten rules leads to black-balling and questioning of loyalty.

At press time, Wells Barton was planning to re-release his album Stars and Bars and Cadillac Cars with "White River Hills" replaced by a new song, "Texas is My Only Girl," but it remains to be seen if too much damage has already been done.

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Single Review: Lee Brice "Boy"

By Jonny Brick

Two of the finest songs of the last decade are I Don’t Dance and I Drive Your Truck. The former has been played on Spotify alone 67m times, the latter a mere 24m times. The voice of Lee Brice, sort of like Tim McGraw’s (in fact a lot like the voice of Tim McGraw), carries both of those songs.

Much like "My Old Man," the new Zac Brown song which does this without programmed drums and synths, this song is another to be found in the sub-genre of Dad/Son-country. It could also be a message to young writers seduced by the headlights of modern country; head to the trunk, where’s there is gold to be found in mining the human condition.

We have a while to wait for the album, self-titled (like Tim McGraw’s first album) and out in November. Tim is on tour this year, still plugging Damn Country Music, which contains "Humble & Kind," a song written by a mum to her kids but sung by Tim, a dad of three.

Musically there are two magical moments in Boy: Lee’s little chuckle in the second verse after the word ‘stubborn,’ and the slide guitar sound before the sombre final chorus which ends on the line ‘run like he’s bulletproof and total a car, too.’ Country must realise that, above other genres, it puts family first, rather than the act of making babies.

"Boy" is thus one of those ‘advice’ songs country music offers (some star or other has just put one out called "Speak to a Girl"). It’s a song from a dad to his son, who will ‘always be my boy’ even if he is genetically programmed to repeat the mistakes of his dad. The middle eight is tender, as the dad feels sorry that his son is off – on his gap year? To NYU? To fight for his country?

Lee is a father-of-two, soon to be a father-of-three, and he must have seized on this song when it was sent to him for consideration. "Boy" was written by Nicolle Galyon (Automatic, It Ain’t Pretty) and Jon Nite (Strip It Down, We Were Us, Think a Little Less). It’s a winner, and an example of what contemporary songwriters in Nashville can do when they step off the tailgate.

After five years of drinking beer, cruising and eating a catfish dinner, country music is hopefully waking up to what Chris Young would call a Sober Saturday Night. If it lasts a few years, so much the better for top quality songs about real things coming out of Music Row and given the confidence to make headway into the charts and people’s playlists.

8/10

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