Chris Wall

Chris Wall

Genres: country, americana, new country

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About Chris Wall

His career as a musician began after a move to Jackson Hole, Wyoming in 1986. While working as a bartender at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar he began writing songs, and joined the legendary Rocky Mountain band Pinto Bennett and the Famous Motel Cowboys In 1988, an invitation from Texas troubadour Jerry Jeff Walker to write songs together brought Chris to Austin, Texas. He played dancehalls and clubs across Texas and throughout the country, as well as festivals and clubs in Europe. He opened concerts for many of his musical heroes, including Waylon Jennings, Guy Clark, Conway Twitty and George Jones. Chris was a widely respected songwriter, whom Ray Wylie Hubbard described as a “cowboy savior/hero/poet who, with his words and music gives us redemption from the atrocities of this illusion that is presently known as country music.” His classic, “I Feel Like Hank Williams Tonight,” recently recorded by Sunny Sweeney, was reviewed as “the best song ever to explain country’s plaintive appeal.” Ironically, he was most commercially successful for his tongue-in-cheek song “Trashy Women,” which was a Top 10 hit for Confederate Railroad in 1993. It made him, he liked to quip, “quite famous in the laundry room of my apartment complex.” In 1994 he was nominated for a Grammy award for the song. He was courted by Nashville after that success, but, as he said, “I just ended up putting a lot of miles on my truck.” Described as “one of the last real great country artists at the moment,” his traditional sound and dark, witty, lyrical phrasing were called “a little too real for today’s Nashville.” In response, Chris penned the classic song “Texas Time,” with the immortal line “I’d Rather Be a Fencepost in Texas Than the King of Tennessee.” Chris released seven critically acclaimed albums during his career, the first two on Walker’s Tried and True label, both later released by Rykodisc, and the remaining on his own Cold Spring Records label. Notable songs include: “I’ll Take the Whiskey (You Take the Wheel),” “Wild Bill and the Montana Kid,” a tribute to his Uncle Bill Coughlin, “Cowboy Nation,” ”Three Across,” “Old Broken Record,” and “El Western Motel.” His songs have been recorded by more than a dozen artists. “It’s American music, rooted in the culture of the West,” Wall says. “Call it what you like.” In addition, Chris was a vital and important member of the famous and fertile Austin country scene of the 1990s. Through his independent Cold Spring Records label, he helped establish the careers of Reckless Kelly, the Asylum Street Spankers, and James Hand. Christopher David Wall died Thursday, July 29, 2021 in hospice care at St. David’s South Austin Medical Center.

Taken from Last.fm

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