Originally published in Motorcycles On the Road Again, April 2006.
It’s Not Just for Texas Anymore
By Amy Edgerly
When I told Pat Green that my in-laws, who are from New England, once asked me “What about that Pat Green? Should we go see that Pat Green? Is that Pat Green any good?” He chuckled and said, “That Pat Green! It sounds like the kid who puts the cat in the mailbox!” I’d wager that “that Pat Green” was never the kid who put anything in any mailbox that didn’t belong there. However, he was a young man who was fired by his own father who told him to be a musician because he would be better at that than selling accounts for the family’s wholesale fuel business. Proof positive that it could behoove a person to heed the advice of their elders!
Since that fateful day, Pat Green has been proving to Texas and the world that indeed “Father Knows Best”. He spent the many years of his career making a name for himself on the Texas music scene by playing colleges and honky-tonks, all the while endearing himself firmly in the hearts of Texans, who can’t shake him loose.
Texans like to claim Pat Green as their own, even though it is obvious that even a state the size of Texas isn’t big enough to contain the talent in this particular guy. He has outgrown the honky-tonks and icehouses, and is now playing and selling out stadiums and arenas in Texas and also in cities all over the United States. He sold so many records as an unsigned artist that he helped break the mold of how music was traditionally marketed and played on the air. He also helped pave the way for multitudes of artists to do exactly the same. As traditional country artist Johnny Bush told us in a previous interview, “I think Pat Green sold half a million albums before he ever got a record deal.”
Pat Green has made himself synonymous with Texas music, along with so many of his contemporaries, but his contagion has spread outside Texas as well. His current tour has taken him all over the country, but no matter how much his truth-seeking songs and affable, boyish charm may facilitate his marketability in “the other states”, Pat Green will probably never experience the open affection poured upon him by his home state fans. One Case in point is the Fall Fandango concert at Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion in the Woodlands, TX in early October.
The Fall Fandango concert, after four years of occurring right outside Houston, is becoming a bona fide annual event that Texas country music fans look forward to and make plans around each year. The Fandango is modeled after Willie Nelson’s Fourth of July picnic, in that there are concerts on two stages that alternate all day and into the night so the music never really stops once it starts.
Pat always has Texas favorites on the bill with him. This year they included Wade Bowen, Django Walker (son of Jerry Jeff), Shooter Jennings (son of Waylon), the Randy Rogers Band, and rising mainstream country radio star from Arizona, Dierks Bentley. As in years past, this year’s Fandango guests were not only primo Texas country artists, but all are also friends and/or collaborators of Mr. Green as well.
One of Pat’s biggest hits, “Texas On My Mind” was actually written by Django Walker. Pat brags of Django, “He’s a fantastic human being and he’s really come along too in the world of songwriting. This new record he’s got coming out in the next couple of months is a fantastic record and I’m very excited to see what happens with it.” When asked what he thinks of Shooter Jennings, Pat says proudly, “Man, we’ve done a lot of work together and I think the world of him. And to be the son of a legend is a pretty tall order to stand up to, and I think he’s done it with pride and he’s done it real well. I hope Waylon’s up there kicking around and getting something out of it.”
Wade Bowen also has bragging rights to a working relationship with Pat by being the co-writer of one of Pat’s more recent hits, “Don’t Break My Heart Again”. Randy Rogers proclaims Bowen to be his “best friend in the whole world”. As in most things Texan, the mutual love and respect vibe is alive and well when the Fandango is in town.
So what is it that makes this so? Pat has his own theory on the subject of how Texas music and musicians kind of get into your blood. He says, “I like what Waylon said, that Texans actually believe they are a little bigger”, he laughs. “I’m not saying that it’s true, necessarily so, but there is a bravado that comes from being from this state and there’s a sense of self, because of the huge cross section of humanity that lives here in this state. And I really believe that Texas is one of the very few places in the world where people see everybody as equals and you get the respect that you’ve earned and that’s all you get! So being a songwriter and being from here, it makes the songs come out a little (at least for me) more thoughtful and with a little more sense of self.”
When I asked Pat about his songwriting process, I wondered if songs just came to him out of the blue, like gifts from a higher plane, and he told me, “Sure! I think “Carry On” was a song that I felt like was definitely that way. It’s a great, driving song. It’s one of those tunes that were written in 20 minutes. And still is a song that I like to play every night on stage. “Baby Doll” is certainly that way and another song called “Wrapped”. I guess when I hear them, they still lift my spirit even though I was a part of their creation; I still like playing them. I’ve been given a special channel where I can hear something and then play it for you. But my God, I’m a fan of music too and anything that’s any good, I sure appreciate.”
Perhaps it’s that unbridled appreciation of his own that is channeled through into his delighted audiences that can make 20,000 people get up and dance and sing along to every word of every song at a Pat Green concert. Perhaps it’s those boyish “I’d-never-put-a-cat-in-a-mailbox” wholesome looks of his that draws in his audiences and makes them trust that every word he sings is the “God’s honest truth”. Then again, it might be the good old fashioned work ethic of writing, recording and touring almost non-stop and the ability to make it look so fun and easy, that attracts a crowd and makes a person think, “Hey, I want to party with THAT guy!”
Whatever it is, Pat Green fans the world over, and even here in Texas, dutifully hope and pray that it keeps on keeping on until generations to come are also growing up on the raspy, truthful, soul-searching music of Mr. Pat Green.
I had to ask Pat, purely out of curiosity: If you had been born tone deaf and with no right arm, what do you think you might have been? He laughed his easy laugh one last time and said, “I guess I’d be a left-handed piano player? No, I don’t know man. I guess I never gave it another thought. I’d probably be really bored.” This is proof that hypothetical questions are just an exercise in futility. We are all born what we are and Pat Green is no exception.
He’s a self-professed lover of living life loud and true. In his twilight years, he wants to look back and say, “I’d love to tell you the things that I’ve done… but we don’t have time.” And in that respect, we all have a little something in common with Pat Green which hopefully will keep us all from ever being really bored. (Or playing the piano left-handed…?)