Don Walser - Biography
Texas dancehall titan Don Walser was the perfect country music storm—a singer of breathtaking power and skill, steeped in tradition yet uncannily adept at delivering a sound as contemporary in feel as it was indisputably linked to history. He was also a classic example of the overnight sensation—it only took 45 years of weekend beer joint and VFW Hall gigs, but when he finally crashed into the national consciousness, at the height of Garth Brooks’ monolithic domination of the field, Walser’s impact was nothing less than phenomenal. Dubbed the “Pavarotti of the Plains” by Playboy magazine, featured on dozens of national TV and radio shows, Walser found himself a bona-fide star at age 64.
Born Donald Ray Walser on September 14, 1934 in Brownfield, Texas and raised in the Lubbock-adjacent small-town of Lamesa, Walser began a lifelong romance with country music as a child, growing up to the sounds of Lone Star state heroes Bob Wills and Ernest Tubb. His mother died when he was 11 years old, and Walser’s father toiled the night shift at a cotton mill, and so he occupied his solitary adolescence with non-stop guitar practice, honing his skill as a songwriter and cultivating a world-class yodeling style. Already performing with local bands at 15, Walser experienced the golden age of Texas honky-tonk first hand; shortly thereafter, he lied about his age to enlist in the Texas National Guard, and romanced and wed his wife Pat. He remained in West Texas, raising four children, playing country music jobs every weekend and, eventually, he rose to the position of state auditor for the Guard.
While he first recorded his signature number “Rolling Stone from Texas” in 1963, the single—issued by the tiny Plainsman label—was quickly lost in the shuffle and it was not until his retirement from state service in 1994 that Walser’s musical career finally took precedence. Playing the dancehall circuit, Walser came to the attention of Asleep at the Wheel bandleader Ray Benson, who co-produced Walser’s debut, Rolling Stone from Texas (1994 Watermelon). High praise from all quarters quickly rolled in, from the profile-boosting Playboy magazine rave to analytical accolades from revered country music historian Bill C. Malone, and Walser began to make up lost time with a vengeance, drawing mixed crowds of stone country fans and punk rockers, opening shows for the likes of Johnny Cash and Texas psych-punk oddballs The Butthole Surfers and reveling in his new found fame.
In 1996 he took the Austin Music Awards Best Performing Country Band and was voted Band of the Year in the Austin Chronicle’s music poll. The following year, his Texas Top Hand (1997 Watermelon) won the Association for Independent Music’s Indie award, and Walser enjoyed the fulfillment of every country singer’s fondest wish when he was invited to perform at the Grand Ole Opry in 1999 (an honor which the Opry duplicated in 2001). Walser was on a Texas-size roll of good fortune: he received the prestigious National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Award in 2000 and performed at the Kennedy Center in New York. He kept on working the road and cutting albums as critical praise continued to stack up all around him.
Retiring from the dancehalls in 2003, Walser was felled by complications from diabetes on September 20, 2006.