Rocky Hill - Lone Star Legend (2012)

Tracklist

01. Take a Message to Garcia
02. Go Down Dupree
03. Bad Year for the Blues
04. Hoodoo Eyes
05. Waitin' Around to Die
06. Tower Song
07. The Charleston Knife
08. Sam Bass


In 1979, under the headline “Lone Star Legend,” Rolling Stone profiled the Houston guitarist Rocky Hill, detailing his career, which was too often derailed by stubbornness and self-sabotage. The article refers to an unreleased album that the writer guessed might trigger Mr. Hill’s transition from a regional guitar hero to a national one. That transition never happened. Instead, Mr. Hill — who died in 2009 at 62 — is regularly referred to by a small cult of fanatics as “the best guitarist you never heard.” And the tantalizing album that Rolling Stone mentioned, recorded in 1977, finally saw its first release earlier this year.
“Thirty-four years ago, I thought I was going to be a rock mogul, and Rocky would be a rock star. It didn’t quite work out that way, “ said John Lomax III of Nashville, who financed and co-produced what he calls the lost 1977 sessions. Mr. Lomax released the album on digital media platforms under the title “Texas Guitar Legend,” but it has largely gone unnoticed.
The sessions Mr. Lomax produced in the late ’70s were meant to be the groundwork for Mr. Hill’s first solo record, his springboard to stardom. But with Mr. Hill’s reputation for erratic offstage behavior and long periods of inactivity, his career was one extended false start. The 1977 sessions exemplified his problems working within the modern music industry, which stemmed from Mr. Hill’s insistence on micromanaging the recording process.

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