Alverson, a Fort Worth resident, could easily have called his fifth release Texan to the Bone. He emphatically makes that point at least once on every album. Even the slogan on his website reads, “Texas music the way it ought to be.” The album, Country to the Bone, was released at Alverson’s 10th annual Texas Music Family Gathering, a steadily growing three-day festival that’s about as Texan as it gets. Alverson’s been making music with a Lone Star state of mind, and sound, for decades, yet his popularity is still growing. In 2007, he won the Best Country and Western Music Award from Fort Worth Weekly. Alverson has been hanging around with great Texas songwriters since his Itasca High School days – even if he didn’t quite know it then. He played varsity football with Austin’s Sam Baker (then known as Dick Baker). During junior college, he played guitar with James Hand, and later produced Hand’s first album. One might call all three late bloomers, career-wise. In their 50s, they’re finally getting real recognition. Though Alverson has stood on Texas’ honky-tonk and dance hall stages since way before he could be called an elder statesman of anything, the first time radio really paid attention was with the Jimmy Buffett-ish “Una Mas Cerveza,” a song on 1999’s, Lloyd Maines-produced Me on the Jukebox. Ironically, that one allowed him to quit his 30-year gig with Miller Brewing Co. so he could hit the road and sing more songs with clever twists on one of country’s favorite subjects, like “This Buzz is For You” and “Upside Down,” which humorously examines the flip side of irresponsible inebriation. Country to the Bone contains another unmistakably Buffett-like tune, “Welcome to Paradise,” but this one is an actual tribute to one of Alverson’s other beloved artists. Though it, too, has references to tipsiness, it’s more about the camaraderie Buffett inspires among fans. Even though he’s clearly “country to the bone,” Alverson says he would rather be known as an “all over the map” artist than a traditional country performer.

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Musicians

• Tommy Alverson: guitar, lead vocals, vocals
• Ray Austin: pedal steel guitar
• Jerry Abrams: bass
• Thurston Selby: fiddle, vocals
• "Rockin' Ron" Thompson: drums

Former members

• Joe Ammons: drums, vocals
• Dirt Stinnett: fiddle, guitar, mandolin, vocals

Albums

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