Country Music & Otolaryngology
Dr. Blake Simpson Saves a Legendary Voice
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Johnny Bush pays tribute to his old stomping grounds !
Chron.com by Andrew Dansby
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Thanks to Botox, Johnny Bush sings agian!
CMT.com by Craig Shelburne click here to read article
Texas State of Mind
Nashvillescene.com by Edd Hurt click here to read article
Book Reviews
No Depression Book Review
Houston Press
Kashmere Gardens Mud CD Reviews
TX Honky-Tonk Legend JOHNNY BUSH - New Album
Kashmere Gardens Mud: A Tribute to Houston's Country Soul
Release date: February 27, 2007 on Icehouse Music
HILLIS’ FINAL COPY FOR THE LINER NOTES
Houston Press
Evanston Review
Houston Chronicle
About Review
Buddy Magazine
Acoustic CD Defines a New Bush Dimension
By: Sam Kindrick
Bush Lends His Voice To National Campaign
By: John Goodspeed
JOHNNY BUSH’S NEW SINGLE “WHISKEY RIVER” DEBUTS IN TEXAS MUSIC CHART
San Antonio, TX – Texas Legend Johnny Bush’s new single “Whiskey River,” debuts this week at #24 on the Texas Music Chart. Willie Nelson joins Bush on the popular “Whiskey River,” penned by Bush. The song was a major hit for both Nelson and Bush and marks the first time the two have recorded “Whiskey River” together.
“Whiskey River” is the first single release from Bush’s album; HonkyTonic, due in stores September 7th. The new album features duets with Cooder Graw, Stephanie Urbina Jones, Tommy Alverson, Kevin Fowler, and Willie Nelson.
HonkyTonic is already receiving rave reviews. Noted Country Music historian Robert K. Oermann writes, “Many people assume that Willie's longtime concert opener is one of his own songs. It is, rather, the work of Texas legend Johnny Bush. The two team up for this ragged-but-right rendition. Johnny takes a leather-lunged attack; Willie is a laid-back jazzbo.”
John Goodspeed of The San Antonio Express News loudly proclaims, “If sensitive, saccharine love ballads are an illness, then Johnny Bush has the cure - a stiff shot of HonkyTonic. Bush knows that great songs, like great literature, don't always have happy endings; that we can learn about ourselves through pain and misery, something he's been a master at teaching for years. The icing is a ride down Bush's "Whiskey River" with Willie Nelson, surprisingly the first time they ever paired up to record it. Make my "HonkyTonic" a double.”
“In Texas, Johnny Bush is nothing less than a god-like living legend.”
-Dan Ferguseon, Time Out
“Texas’ honky-tonk legend Johnny Bush is as country as a hound dog in the back of a pick up truck.”
- Chicago Sun Times
“A honky-tonk master of the dance-floor-filling shuffle and the whisky-weeping ballad.”
-Austin American Statesman
“Johnny Bush is one of the best kept secrets of the Texas honky-tonks. He is as vital today as when he began his schooling career four decades ago.”
-Jeremy Tepper, Tower Pulse
Johnny Bush
Lost Highway Saloon
Sings Bob Wills
(Lone Star Records)
It's no wonder they call him "The Country Caruso."
Johnny Bush has a tenor voice so warm and vibrant it could heat an Eskimo village. And the fact it's in such good shape after the singer spent most '70's and '80's afflicted by a career-threatening neurological disorder, spasmodic dysphonia, is nothing short of a miracle.
Both Lost Highway Saloon and Sings Bob Wills find Bush's voice standing as a beacon of clarity that shines through tasteful clutter-free arrangements. Sings Bob Wills is an airy, 10-song-in-26-minutes big-band salute to the King of Western Swing that was recorded at Willie Nelson's Perdenales studio in 1990 (at the precise time the IRS swooped in and padlocked the place until Nelson resolved that mess). Yet the sands of time have been kind to Sings Bob Wills. The two-trumpet, double fiddle, sax, trombone, and multi-guitar-layered attack provide the perfect panorama for for Bush's expressive singing and buoyant arrangements. Merle Haggard's "Don't Sing Me Songs About Texas" done with guest singer Hank Thompson, and the class "South of the Border" breath heartily with fiddles and horns allowing each other plenty of leeway. Willie Nelson's vocal contributions to "Time Changes Everything" offers a vibrato so similar to Bush that you wonder if they were seperated at birth. Bush even floats an entertaining instrumental rendition of "Jersey Bounce" just so he can feature his band. Now how cool is that?
The more recent Lost Highway Saloon favors a converntional band format, but doesn't forsake authenticity for economics. The hopeful Ray Price swing shuffle "The Same Ole Me," the aching two-step balld "When It's Your Turn To Fall" and the playful dancehall tune "Maybe, Maybe Not" are dignified country gems, and "The Wall," a duet by Bush and Leona Williams, may be on of the finest male-female vocal partnerships to ever grace recorded music. The 57-minute, 14-song CD is peppered with material from such song-writing icons as Sanger D. Shaffer and Leon Payne, with veteran studio deities Buddy Emmons on steel guitar and pianist Hargus "Pig" Robbins adding journeyman licks.
Enhanced by exquisite sound, The Lost Saloon and Sings Bob Wills are valuable reminders of the brilliant partnership that taste and tradition can form. For "country-Caruso" Johnny Bush, only one word seems sufficient: Bravo!
- N.K.
Country Music, April/May 2001
Johnny Bush, "Lost Highway Saloon" (Lone Star Records): It's good news when a new country label debuts with a legend's album--especially when it's a home run. Lone Star is part of the Texas Music Group, a new "mini major" label in Austin. Bush spent two years finding the right songs, and a few mark a departure from tradition twin-fiddle "Johnny Bush" odes to hard-core country. Some are old, such as the early 1950's Tennessee Ernie Ford/Kaye Starr duet "I'll Never Be Free," which Bush does with Houston singer Kate McCarthy. Bush's version proves real country is cool, as if there were any doubters. Some are new, such as New Braunfels honk-tonker Clay Blaker's "The Wall," another knock out duet with Nashville singer Leona Williams about a couple after the flame burns out. The album, themed on dealing with rejection, kicks off with the fiddle-fired Ray Price shuffle "The Same Ole Me" and doesn't miss a step through 14 cuts, to its ending of redemption, "Wine Into Water." In between are songs whose titles hint at their depth-- "Wish I'd Seen Your Going Coming," "Hands Can Say a Lot Beneath the Table" and "Pride Goes Before a Fall." Bush's biggest departure is the title track, a haunting "Twighlight Zone"-like tale of a man at a bar where the jukebox conjures Lefty, Hank and Patsy. As on every other cut, Bush sings with passion, mining his nearly half a century of expressing love, pain and sarrow. The musicians read like a who's who of Texas country music and contribute to the overall feel of an instant classic, cut after cut. "Lost Highway Saloon" is a milestone from the master of heartbreak.
Friday, September 22nd, 2000 San Antonio Express News Weekender, -John Goodspeed
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