The Country Shuffle

Joaquin (l) and Justin Trevino (Photo By John Carrico)

Justin Trevino may be nearing his 28th birthday, but the music he makes carries the weight of a man twice his age. Travelin' Singin' Man, Trevino's third album, is filled with what he likes to call "The Country Shuffle," a category that genre forebears like Johnny Bush and Ray Price perfected: easygoing tunes perfect for the honky-tonk and a night of Texas two-steppin'. The main attraction is Trevino's voice, as pure and supple a tenor as you'll ever hear. It glides above the music, relaying each tune's sentiment with remarkable grace and finesse.

Blind since birth, Trevino entered the world via Brownsville in 1973, moving to Austin with his family four years later. Here in the outlaw country capital of the world, Trevino got his first guitar at age 7, and began taking lessons. Speaking from his home in Martindale, southeast of San Marcos, Trevino recalls the first time he performed in public.

"There was a little beer joint in South Austin called the Buccaneer," he recalls. "My dad and I used to stop in there quite a bit. I was taking guitar lessons, and we'd stop in there on our way home. I'd bring my guitar with me and sing a few songs. There'd be these drunks who yell out, 'sing "Great Speckled Bird,"' or 'sing "Molly & Meí"' and all kinds of stuff like that."

The Buccaneer didn't have live music on a regular basis, but on one occasion, they brought in a band and tipped off the elder Trevino, telling him to bring in his son to sing a couple songs with the band. Neither Trevino needed to be asked twice, and that night, Justin sang the old Johnny Horton song "Slewfoot" and Hank Williams' "Kaw-liga."

"That was the first time I remember being on stage with a band and trying to sing," he says. "It felt good."

More importantly, perhaps, the occasion was just one of many key pivotal points in Justin's musical development provided by his father Joaquin, an avid country music fan. A serious record collector going back decades, Joaquin imbued his country music convictions on his son, and the lessons took.

"If there was a station programming real hardcore traditional country all hours of the day and night, I'd be up listening to it," laughs Trevino. "That's what I used to do when I was a kid. I used to listen to all-night truckers radio, when truckers radio was still good."

He grew up in the radio glow of folks like Curtis Potter, Darrell McCall, and Justin Tubb, whom Trevino was named after, all artists who appreciated the country shuffle in their time. His favorite, the big one, was Texas legend Johnny Bush.

"The first time I heard him sing I said to myself, 'My God there's a singer for ya,'" proclaims Trevino. "When I was 10, I set out to collect all of his records and they were all out of print. It took me a few years, but I got them."

By the time he was 13, Trevino had formed his own band, Sunset Country. The group played honky-tonks in and around Austin, most notably a monthly gig at Henry's Bar & Grill in North Austin. It was here that he made the acquaintance of local country legends like Don Walser and Cornell Hurd, both of whom caught an early glimpse of the singer's talent. Three years later, he landed the slot he most wanted, at the Eisenhauer Road Flea Market in San Antonio.

"There was a little beer joint inside the flea market called the Red Eye Saloon," explains Trevino. "Harry Weiss, the guy who owns the flea market, would have Sunday afternoon jam sessions there. I knew Johnny Bush went out there sometimes, so I started going down there and sitting in."

One day after Weiss heard Trevino singing "Whiskey River," Bush's signature song, he remarked how much the young man sounded like the elder country statesman and promised to introduce the two of them.

"I didn't think anything would come of it," he remembers. "But he called me a couple of weeks later and said, 'Can you be here on Sunday? I've got Johnny coming out.'

"So I'm up there singing that afternoon and Johnny gets up on the stage and announces, 'Ladies and gentlemen, I'm a little under the weather. I've got a real bad cold, I'm kinda hoarse, and I can't sing. I've been told that this young man knows all my songs. What I'm gonna do is sit here and play lead guitar and he's gonna sing my songs. So you can look at me and listen to him.'

"Now, I'm on the spot! I've never sung in front of Johnny Bush and I'm gonna have to sing his songs."

Trevino started "Undo the Right" and ended up 45 minutes later, fast friends with his idol. Would that Trevino's career in country music was all beer and skittles after that, but the music business will be the music business. After Henry's shut down in 1992, Trevino was at a loss on how to increase his local profile. He'd given up playing little neighborhood bars and had begun looking for work primarily as a bass player. The Pure Texas Band had moved over to Babe's on Mondays, so he started going on a weekly basis.

"Don Walser kind of took me under his wing," says Trevino. "He was instrumental in me putting out my first record. He wanted me to record some songs and give them to him as a demo to pitch to Watermelon Records, where he had just signed. His band helped me with the recording and I got it to Watermelon, but they never got back to me on it. It was cut in '95 or '96 and I sat on it for a couple of years. I released it myself in 1998, that was the Texas Honky Tonk album."

Two years later, he self-released the critically acclaimed Loud Music and Strong Wine with the help of members of the Pure Texas Band, Johnny Bush's Bandoleros, and legendary steel guitarist Jimmy Day. Eventually, he became a regular with both Cornell Hurd and Don Walser, while also playing occasionally with the Bandoleros. When Bush's bass player quit the band last year, Trevino was asked to fill his seat. Now, when you go to a Johnny Bush show, Trevino leads off with a 45-minute set of his own, then leads the band and sings harmony while Johnny does his regular performance.

"Playing with Johnny Bush puts me in front of the crowd that I want to play for," enthuses Trevino. "Chances are good that if those people like Johnny, they're gonna like what I do and they're going to want to see me play again. So it makes a lot of sense. Here's a guy that I looked up to for so long and I get a chance to work with him. I want to play with him and soak up as much as I can."

Bush, who acted as co-producer on Travelin' Singin' Man, can't say enough good things about his young protogé.

"He's a very talented bass player besides his great singing voice," declares Bush. "His bass-playing ability makes him an asset to any band. The fact that he can't see presents no problem at all. He built his own recording studio. He records his own music and he's a great songwriter. I only produced half of the new record. The only thing I did as a producer is act more of a consultant than anything else. He likes me to be in the studio, because four ears are better than two ears. He does the same thing for me when I record."

It seems the only thing the two musicians don't agree on is Trevino's songwriting talent. In that regard, the young singer is incredibly hard on himself. As a matter of fact, none of the songs on Travelin' Singin' Man are Trevino's compositions. Instead, he covers tunes from the songbooks of Bush, Fred Rose, Mel Tillis, Justin Tubb, Jeannie Sealy, and some lesser known but equally skilled writers. The common thread between them all is that they're decidedly in a traditional country vein.

"I'm not a prolific songwriter and not a very good one, even though I try," says Trevino, assessing his own efforts. "I've written one or two songs that I think are really good. I've written a whole bunch that are mediocre, and a whole bunch of them that are hideous. I'm pretty hard on myself. If I don't think it's foolproof, I don't put it on the record.

"I'm always looking for new material. I don't care who wrote it. I don't care if it was written by Bill Anderson 30 years ago, though, as a matter of fact, that's what I'm hoping to find -- stuff that's never been recorded and will stand up. There's a song on this new album that Johnny Bush wrote called 'Where Were You?' Johnny wrote it back in the Sixties, but never recorded it. There are guys out there writing country shuffles today, but it hasn't been easy finding them."

Maybe it's time Justin Trevino considered the talent in his own back yard.