Tony Booth is one of the few country artists from the late ‘60s and early ‘70s who are still touring and making music today. While he isn’t burning up the charts or launching cross-country tours, Booth maintains a devoted and ever-growing fanbase with rock-solid live shows and a catalog of country gold. He’s won ACM Awards, played for audiences around the world, and worked closely with legends like Buck Owens and Gene Watson among others. In short, Booth is the genuine article.
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Recently, Booth sat down with American Songwriter to talk about his long career, almost walking away from the music business for good, and what he’s doing now.
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Tony Booth Was Almost a Teacher
Tony Booth started his musical journey early, winning talent competitions with his guitar skills in Florida in his early teens and singing through high school. With a foundation of music, he attended the University of New Mexico with the intention of becoming a teacher. However, fate had other plans.
“I was going to be a music teacher because I was already into music,” Booth said. “But I just sang in high school and stuff and never seriously considered a music career. Then, my mom married a musician and he got me out of my shell. I was an introvert but then I started going to gigs with him,” he recalled.
“I played tuba in school then I switched over to electric bass. Whenever my stepdad got me to come out and sing with him, I could already play bass. So I had a leg up on the music part of it. Next thing you know, one of the hot bands in Albuquerque offered me a job. So, I dropped out of college and started playing music full time,” he said of his transition to the music world. At the time, he was a starving college student, and being a musician put more food on his table than going to school.
Taking a Leap into the Music World
“One thing led to another and a guy from Montana called and offered me a job. I took a pay cut but I took it because I had never been to Montana,” he said. Taking that pay cut led to bigger things than he could have imagined.
“That guy had roots in California. So, we went out there and the next thing you know, I’m playing a club in Sacramento and one of Buck Owens’ reps came in to hear the bandleader and wound up liking me better. So, he took me to meet Buck,” Booth recalled. “Around 1969, I released my first record with Capitol Records thanks to Buck Owens. It just kind of went from there.”
Tony Booth Won the Musical Lottery with Buck Owens
“I really kind of feel like I hit the lottery,” Tony Booth said when asked what it was like to work with Owens. “Buck was the power for the West Coast. He was bigger than Merle because he owned everything. Merle was just a picker like the rest of us, he didn’t have much business sense. But Buck was a mogul, I guess you could say,” he explained.
“Everybody benefitted from Buck—Merle, Freddie Hart, Wynn Stewart, all those guys. So, I was with the best guy I could be with, living in California,” he recalled. “It was great. Like I said, I felt like I hit the lottery and I didn’t question anything. If he said ‘Sing this,’ I said, ‘Okay.’ Some of those songs, I never would have picked for myself but I trusted his instincts,” he added. “He was a multimillionaire and I was a pauper so I went with him. He turned out to be right. Fifty years later, ‘Key’s in the Mailbox,’ ‘Cinderella,’ and ‘Lonesome 7-7203’ are still getting requests.”
About the longevity of his music, he said, “I think one of the reasons they lasted so long is because they were simple songs. And any little weekend warrior band could play them. Back then, it wasn’t classic country, it was current country and all the bands were learning my songs. I really think that helped my career a lot.”
Leaving California and Expanding His Horizons
All good things must come to an end. The same was true for the boom of the Bakersfield Sound. “I left California because country music was getting hard to find and I had a chance to make a giant leap,” Tony Booth recalled. “I auditioned for the Broadway play The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. I flew to Houston, Texas and auditioned and got the job. I was the bandleader, the narrator, and the bass player, and I sang the opening song. So, I toured with that show for two-and-a-half years. It was like a different world,” he said. “After the play ended I went to work for Gene Watson for the next 12 years playing bass in his band,” Booth added.
Tony Booth Retired for a Time
After his time in Gene Watson’s band ended, Tony Booth decided to call it quits. “I kind of retired and started trucking and bought a couple of trucks. Then, Tracy Pitcox who puts on all the shows that we do now—he’s a country history buff and likes all the old timers and I was an old timer—he started calling me for a couple of years trying to get me to come do a show,” Booth recalled. “I kept putting him off. I hadn’t done it in so long, I didn’t know if I could or not,” he added.
“Then, my buddy started telling me I needed to get back into it. So, I finally relented and it was the greatest decision. I’m glad they prodded me into doing it because I would have been done with music. Now, for the last 15 or 20 years, I’ve been working my way back to where people remember me,” he said.
About how his absence from the scene affected his career, Booth said, “I was out of sight of the public for so long that a couple of generations missed my music altogether. So, a lot of youngsters are hearing my music for the first time.” He added, “That’s kind of where I’m at right now. I’ve made three or four albums for Heart of Texas Records. We’ve got all the original Buck Owens four-inch tapes and we remastered them and released those again. So, I’ve got quite a collection of music going.”
Don’t Expect a New Tony Booth Album
Major changes in the industry made recording new albums a net loss for Tony Booth. The platforms he once used to get his music to his fans and new listeners aren’t open to him anymore. So, it is likely that his 2020 album Something ‘Bout You Baby I Like will be his last.
“Satellite radio like Willie’s Roadhouse, their new policy is that they won’t play anything that wasn’t a national chart record. At one time, 20% of their content was Heart of Texas and other Texas artists’ music. When they made the new rule, they dropped a bunch of them. That hurt any new music. There was no sense in recording new music that wasn’t going to get played,” he explained. “Then, a couple of our biggest distributors like the Ernest Tubb Record Shop shut down. They were the biggest brick-and-mortar buyer of our product. And when you’re not doing 200 shows a year like the current crop, you can’t sell enough from the stage to pay for the cost of doing a recording session,” he added. “So, basically, I’m not doing any recording right now. It’s not cost-effective. Another thing is, when I do show up and try to do some of the new stuff, people want to hear old songs. That’s just the way it is.”
Staying Busy with the Heart of Texas Road Show
Just because Tony Both isn’t making new music doesn’t mean he doesn’t stay busy. He’s currently a member of and driving force behind Tracy Pitcox’s Heart of Texas Road Show.
“Last December, Tracy came up with the idea of doing Christmas shows. So, what we do—me and Darrell McCall, Justin Trevino, Dottsy, and whoever else wants to come—we do our music on the first set. Then, we take an intermission and come back and sit around and tell stories about Christmas and sing some Christmas music. That took off, so we do that in December. Usually, nobody is doing anything in December except for New Year’s Eve,” Booth said. “Every year the Heart of Texas crew does a show in Nashville in July. Then, we do one in Branson in October. So, we do a lot of stuff. We get around pretty good.”
Good Country Music Is Universal
“There’s still pockets of classic country fans all over the United States and all over the world. I’ve played in several countries,” said of the reach of country music. “There’s just not enough of them in one place to support a nightclub or a venue of some sort. So, I just go to small towns all over. I work in Illinois more than any place besides Texas,” he revealed.
Country music is huge with fans across the pond and around the world. Booth saw that firsthand in his travels. “Japan is awesome. There’s a man over there right now, his name is Charlie Nagatani and he’s like 86 or 87 and he plays country music seven nights a week,” Booth said. “He’s got a little honky tonk and it looks like you’re in Tootsie’s in Nashville. It’s got wall-to-wall country memorabilia and rebel flags and stuff. It’s on the fifth floor of this hotel. He’s been playing seven nights a week since he was a young man,” he said of the Japanese interpretation of an American honky tonk.
“I’ve done two festivals in Japan. The first time I went to Japan was with Buck. We cut a live album in Tokyo in 1974,” Booth recalled. “So, I went back over there for a festival that Charlie Nagatani was involved in back in 2015. Some of the people who were at the ’74 concert came out to see me. They still had the programs from that 1974 concert and they looked pristine like they had kept them in a vault or something. It was so cool,” he said.
“They can line dance to anything. Over here, it has to be a specific song but they can line dance to a waltz. They’re really good fans,” he said of the country music crowd in Japan.
“Europe was the same way. In England, those guys will show up with chaps on and cap pistols. It was unbelievable. They thought there were still wild Indians running loose in Texas. But, there’s country music fans all over,” Booth added.
Tony Booth’s music is available to stream on Spotify and other digital platforms. Check the Heart of Texas website for tour dates and more.
Featured Image via YouTube
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