Texincest

My brother-in-law, Jake, don't wear no Stetson, but I'm willing to bet, son, that he's a bigger Texan than I am. All you need to do see his correction to my claim that Amarillo Highway was written by Robert Earl Keen. If anyone read the comments from the previous "Don't Mess With Texas" post (see below), you will see it was actually written by Terry Allen.

And this brings to my point (and my self-defense). Is there a more incestuous bunch than Texas singers/songwriters? It's hard to keep track of who's covering whom. Guy Clark covers Steve Earle's "Ft. Worth Blues" on one of his albums. This is a song about Townes Van Zandt, who is covered by every self-respecting Texas musician it seems. It's like a requirement. Look at "Rex's Blues." I've heard it covered Guy Clark, James McMurtry, and Steve Earle. Robert Earl Keen and Lyle Lovett both sing "Front Porch Song." And this is just off the top of my head.

If I'm wrong on any of this, I hope Jake will correct me. But you get the point. Is there any other music genre or group of musicians that cover each other as much as these guys do?

As an aside, James McMurtry has a new live album out. I wanted to buy this album and was curiously drawn to the Triplets of Belleville soundtrack. So as I was saying, I wanted to get these CDs today. But we spent too much time today at Home Depot and shopping for rugs to do fun stuff like buy CDs. Suddenly I miss the old house and all the non-Home Depot shopping we did.