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Don Walser
Biography
Even in Texas folk and country music circles, singer and guitarist Don Walser is regarded as unique. The songs Walser specializes in aren't exactly current; he sings classic old Western swing tunes. In a sense, he's a man on a mission: keeping the old Texas country songs alive. Songs like "Cowpoke," "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," and "Mexicali Rose" are signature tunes for Walser, who is also one of the country's premier yodelers. Songs penned and popularized by Bob Wills, the Sons of the Pioneers, Hank Williams, Faron Young, Merle Travis, and Johnny Horton are all part and parcel of what you're likely to hear in the course of a typical Walser show.

Walser's mother died when he was 12 and his father worked nights, so to keep himself company, he listened to the radio in his childhood home of LaMesa in West Texas. He formed his first band at 16, and a year later, he was playing the few clubs and roadhouses around LaMesa. At the same time Walser was playing country music, a west Texas neighbor of his, Buddy Holly, was raising the roofs at local roadhouses playing rock & roll. As rock & roll came into fashion in the late '50s, Walser and other country musicians were nearly run out of business.