Little Texas blends country, rock, but not in equal amounts

By Jerry Fink

Monday, July 27, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Progressive country group Little Texas recently received a cool reception in Branson, Mo.

Maybe they should have been expecting it, bass player Duane Propes says.

The same thing happened the first time the band played in the Ozarks destination in 1991 for the taping of a TV show for the Family Channel.

“They would unload busloads of old people who would just look at us before we even hit a note and put their hands over their ears,” Propes says.

Apparently things haven’t changed much.

“We kind of knew what we were getting into, but we kind of thought it would have changed a little,” Propes says of the group’s recent gig at the Oak Ridge Boys Theatre. “I guess it’ll be about 15 years before they’re ready for us.

“I don’t know if we’ll be invited back. We were doing what we do and they made us tone it down, turn it down. You can’t spit fire and blood all over the people. They just don’t like it. You have to be nice.”

The producers complimented the group, Propes says. “ ‘You’re bringing in a lot of young people.’ I said, ‘Where?’ The young people were like 50 and 60 years old.”

Little Texas is a little country and a whole lot rock ’n’ roll.

Propes, who started playing nightclubs around Longview, Texas, when he was 13, lists his strongest country influences as “the Big 3” — Alabama, Restless Heart and Hank Williams Jr.

“But I was always a big classic rock guy — Journey, Kansas, Van Halen. But my favorite band in the world, still today, is Kiss, and it shows in our shows,” he says.

Little Texas should receive a warmer reception Friday when it performs at the Las Vegas Country Saloon, one of the town’s newer country venues.

“We always do well in Las Vegas,” Propes says. “We’ve been playing on Fremont Street since 2004.”

That’s shortly after the group reunited, but that’s getting ahead of the story. Here’s a brief history of Little Texas:

•Propes and lead guitarist Porter Howell were attending Belmont College in Nashville when they began working at Opryland in 1988. By the end of the season the core of Little Texas had gotten together.

• In addition to Propes and Howell, the original group featured Dwayne O’Brien on rhythm guitar, Del Gray on drums, Tim Rushlow on vocals and Brady Seals on vocals and keyboards.

• Warner Bros. Records signed the group in 1991 and released its debut album “First Time For Everything.” The album’s first single, “Some Guys Have All the Love,” peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard country chart.

“It was a complete fluke,” Propes says. “I think the thing that made us not expect to be artists in the first place is what keeps us grounded. We are the worst celebrities in the world. We go to award shows, but we’re completely shy. We’ve never felt like stars. When we were doing arenas and selling millions of albums, we never felt the success. It didn’t dawn on us that we were that popular.”

• Little Texas continued to produce hit singles throughout the mid-1990s, including the No. 1 single “My Love,” and top-selling albums such as “Big Time.” “Kick a Little” was certified platinum.

• Seals departed in 1995 for a solo career, and Jeff Huskins replaced him on keyboards. After a gold-certified “Greatest Hits” package and an unsuccessful self-titled fourth studio album, the group called it quits in 1997.

“We decided this wasn’t fun anymore,” Propes says. “We had a lot of employees with their hands out taking big fistfuls out of our pockets. We weren’t here to make music anymore, we were here to keep other people’s livelihoods up. That became our business instead of making music. So we decided to drop back for a while.”

• In 2003 Propes, Howell, O’Brien and Gray regrouped. The others weren’t interested, Propes says.

• The band’s last album — “The Best of Little Texas: Live and Loud!” — was released in 2007 on Montage, a label that closed three months ago.

“That’s happening all over,” Propes says. “We’re still under contract with them, even though they’re closed down. We’re trying to get out of that situation.”

Little Texas plans to take advantage of the dramatic changes in the music business over the past 20 years. Rather than release an album each year, the group will release four songs each quarter that can be downloaded. Fans can create their own albums, download only the songs they want.

“We’re going to start doing our own thing,” he says. “It’s untried territory, but we want to be on the front edge of it because that’s where it’s going.”