By 1865, Lyon & Healy had expanded into reed organs and some small instruments. Healy, acting as the Chicago outlet for Boston sheet music publisher Oliver Ditson and Company. Lyon & Healy began in 1864 as a partnership of businessmen George W. Script error: No such module "Multiple image". This go-round, he's staying on for the whole ride.Corporate history 1864-1940 File:Wasburn 1892 cat.jpg "I've always tried to make records where every song is different so I can listen to them over and over again instead of forty five minutes of essentially the same song," he says. I'm taking some of who I am to where I'm going." "I want to take our music to a wider audience without compromising the integrity of the music. "I was in 14 countries last year," Roger says. Here It Is speaks to those broadening horizons. Long Way To Mexico and Live Across Texas grew his audience beyond state lines. The title track, a striking piece about his granddad and his family, became a staple on more than 200 radio stations programming Texas Country Music. In 1998, he released Having Fun, then blew open the doors two years later with I Got the Guns. I just got out there and busted my hump." So I promised myself that would be one excuse I'd never use. "I'd always been a slacker," Roger admits, "and I could easily see myself failing in music because I wasn't trying hard enough. Working without a paycheck was liberating. He finally listened to his heart and moved back to College Station to pursue a life in music. He graduated from college and spent two years in Houston working a 8-5 gig. Nunn's "You Ask Me What I Like About Texas" and under the influence of Jerry Jeff Walker, Lyle Lovett, Robert Earl Keen, and Jimmy Buffett, along with Willie, Waylon, Cash, Merle, and even Sinatra. The Corpus Christi native was raised on songs like Guy Clark's "Desperadoes Waiting For A Train" and Gary P. But Roger himself is the biggest catalyst of all. Radney teamed up with Justin Tocket, a talented producer himself, to co-produce this project. The two catalysts behind the album were Lloyd Maines, the go-to producer who produced Creager's first albums, and Radney Foster, the Texas kid from Del Rio, whose songs and productions have established him as one of country music's most innovative and edgy operators. It gives you just enough to know there's a history there.
'I Loved You When' is my best story song yet. There's love songs, drinking songs, up-tempo dancing songs, groovy little tunes, one about a man who's screwed up and he's driving like hell through the middle of the night to get home. "I hope there's a song here that penetrates your soul, too," he says, leaning forward.
"But who wants to listen to a whole album of that?" He's aiming for something higher. "It's not going to change any lives, but it sure is fun," Creager laughs about the sing-along, before turning serious. The first single, "I'm From the Beer Joint" plays to Creager's honky-tonk wildcat image informed by his live album, as he declares his preference for independent drinking establishments.
For the first time, he's written or co-written every song on the album. "So it's five years of evolving and maybe even maturing, although it's still me." Actually, it's more of him than ever. "It's been five years since I’ve put out anything new," Roger says. Four albums, hundreds of thousands of road miles, and an ever-expanding fan base later, Here It Is has Roger Creager laying his cards on the table with thirteen songs that are arguably his best batch yet. Along the way, he's been writing some mighty fine instant classics about family heirlooms, fields of bluebonnets, and late night trips to Mexico. For more than a decade, Roger Creager built a reputation on his distinctive brand of hard-core, rabble-rousing Texas Country music, on his rich, full-bodied voice that can carry a tune for miles, and on his exceptional ability to work thousands of Texans into a rabid frenzy with his voice and guitar, in the great concert tradition of Jerry Jeff Walker and Robert Earl Keen.