{"id":900010,"date":"2026-10-08T04:46:52","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T04:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/motorcyclesontheroadagain.com\/?p=900010"},"modified":"2026-10-09T21:34:28","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T21:34:28","slug":"motra-2006-10-musicnotes-j-t-coldfire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/motorcyclesontheroadagain.com\/?p=900010","title":{"rendered":"MusicNotes: J.T.Coldfire"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Amy Edgerly<\/em><\/p>\n

J.T. Coldfire's stage show and career exploits are like a really good book… you never know what will happen next. When I first met him over a year ago, the image of a rock and roll cowboy was branded in my memory. But on our most recent meeting, on his home turf at The Flats Lounge in Port Aransas, TX, the rock and roll cowboy had morphed into a scruffy bandido-esque character, befitting the name El Terrible. Coincidentally, El Terrible is the name of the character he was assuming for the movie La Martina, scheduled to begin shooting in Brackettville, TX just a week later.<\/p>\n

The impression I harbored was that J.T. was the front man for an incredible country trio, a trio which cranks out country music on diesel fuel, super-injected with J.T.'s hammer-down guitar picking which heeds no "Speed Limit" or "No Trespassing" signs. As it turns out his talent and love of the spotlight reaches beyond just the musical stage.<\/p>\n

J.T. Coldfire is also an actor. His acting ability was good enough to earn him a full scholarship to the School of Film and Television in New York City in 2000. So the South Texas country boy headed for the Big Apple for a two-year stint as a student, actor and musician, fulfilling a lifelong dream. A dream that would provide him with all the necessary tools for success: common sense, hard work, perseverance and experience. Although he arguably had those in his toolbox before he left; thankfully, he brought them back home to Texas in 2002.<\/p>\n

JT thrills audiences from the South Texas coast to Austin and beyond every week with his country meets blues guitar virtuosity and his troubadour vocal style. His philosophy of living in the moment and always giving his best, no matter what the endeavor, is what makes this happen. Though his talkative nature is surpassed perhaps only by his talent, I have also learned through our conversations that J.T. Coldfire is wise beyond his 26 years.<\/p>\n

By the time Coldfire was 15, he was playing in bands with musicians who had one or two generations on him. It was the musical and personal influence of these mentors plus Corpus Christi DJ Daddy D, and a brother 10 years his senior that molded him into a polished musician and songwriter, not to mention a young man of principle and passion, who "never quits trying, and never tries quitting."<\/p>\n

But his older compadres are not the only more seasoned individuals to influence young Coldfire. He remembers his time as a musician in New York thusly: "The norm was everybody was shooting for pop radio… and I really just wanted to take a little bit of Texas up there with me." He elaborates: "When I leave Texas, I take some Stevie Ray, I take some ZZ Top and I take some Waylon Jennings\u2014I take some Buddy Holly. I'll take some Texas Tornadoes, some Vicente Fernandez. That's the kind of stuff that, when I was in NY and I was hungry and it's 6 o\u2019clock in the morning, I'm sitting on a subway for 2 hours to get back home… my guitar on one side, my pedals on this side… hanging with a bunch of crazy people down there in the subways of NY… I put my headphones on and I'm sitting there singing \u2018Luckenbach, Texas\u2019 and it would just take me right back home. I would listen to that kind of stuff, to take me back home. And that's what I wanted to do with this album."<\/p>\n

The album of which he speaks is self-titled and contains 12 originals written by Coldfire, most of them autobiographical. He explains that each song he writes is a snapshot of maybe 15 minutes in time, condensed down to a 3-minute song, which he believes correctly to be a more powerful expression of life's ups and downs. He says, "I don't try and write songs that carry over a span of 50 years or life lessons\u2014just a snapshot. That's what I love. Chuck Berry was able to do that. John Lennon was able to do that. Ray Charles as well. Kris Kristofferson is fantastic at it. That's the most beautiful stuff in the world. That's what I try to do with each of these things." He uses one of his own songs to illustrate what he hopes to accomplish via the live performances as well: "A song like 'Making Memories' is about just live for tonight. It's a guy courting a girl and it's 3:00 in the morning and yeah, you gotta go to work in the morning, but let's go for a walk on the beach honey. Let's do something where… you're going to remember this night when you're 50 years old. We try to do that at every show. We try to make memories at every show."<\/p>\n

Another goal he strives toward and achieves on this CD is to make each song sound unique from the first bar forward. He explains, "I wanted people to hear the intro of each song, the first 4 seconds of each song and know that it's not the song that they just heard." He uses Stoney LaRue\u2019s The Red Dirt Album as an example: "I love The Red Dirt Album… the songs on his album really reflect the virtuosity that he has as a songwriter, as a melody man. You don't mistake \u2018One Chord Song\u2019 for \u2018Walking Away\u2019. There's no way. You don't hear track 2 and think, \u2018wait a second, is that track 2 or track 1? I can't tell the difference.\u2019" His vastly varied musical experience is probably responsible for JT's ability to accomplish that very end result on his own album. "I've played in mariachis, I've played in funk bands, I've played in rock bands, I've played in blues bands, and I played in a Rolling Stones tribute band called The Rolling Bones. I played in a Prince tribute band. I've done a lot of Motown stuff. All those things became influences." With that many influences, it has to be extremely difficult for one's own creations to be deemed monotonous. The songs on J.T. Coldfire certainly are not.<\/p>\n

J.T. is not one to settle for monotony in life at all. His music career takes him all over the state of Texas, but it wasn't to be long before the movie industry would be calling on his acting abilities as well. In March 2006 JT reports to the set of the film La Martina in Brackettville, in Southwest Texas near Del Rio. According to scriptwriter Santiago Villalobos, who also joined On The Road Again for the interview for this article, the movie is based on a Mexican corrido. A corrido is a three-part ballad, usually with a romantic or famed criminal or hero theme, and by all reports, based on a true story. La Martina contains all three themes. Without giving away the whole story, it is set in the late 1800's, a story of Mexican Bandidos, (the ones who rode 4-legged horses) and of one Bandido's obsessive love and jealousy and the tragic consequences of both. J.T.'s character is the equivalent of Sonny Corleone's in The Godfather, however he assures us he lasts longer in the story than Sonny did. Which is why at this most recent meeting, JT had forsaken the neatly trimmed beard and straw cowboy hat for unruly curls and facial scruff. Admittedly, both looks serve him equally well.<\/p>\n

Look forward to the release of La Martina in the summer of 2006. Coldfire's CD is available at the touch of your fingertips by visiting www.lonestarmusic.com.<\/p>\n

You can catch an upcoming live show by checking the tour schedule on www.jtcoldfire.com. We can all look forward to many snapshots and memories from this young talent.<\/p>\n\n\n

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By Amy Edgerly J.T. Coldfire's stage show and career exploits are like a really good book… you never know what will happen next. When I first met him over a year ago, the image of a rock and roll cowboy was branded in my memory. But on our most recent meeting, on his home turf … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":900714,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[151],"tags":[147,169],"class_list":["post-900010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-motra-may-june-2006","tag-s131"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclesontheroadagain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclesontheroadagain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclesontheroadagain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclesontheroadagain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclesontheroadagain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=900010"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclesontheroadagain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":900316,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclesontheroadagain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900010\/revisions\/900316"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclesontheroadagain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/900714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclesontheroadagain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=900010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclesontheroadagain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=900010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motorcyclesontheroadagain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=900010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}