Live & Kickin

If you were fortunate enough to live in Austin in the 1970s, you experienced firsthand one of the most bountiful musical eras in American history. The thing is, if you were there, you knew it was special while it was happening. You didn't need a historian fifteen years down the road to let you know what you'd been through. The scene was anchored in the explosion they called Outlaw Country, which comfortably rubbed shoulders with a solid blues scene. One of the most popular acts in the city, though, was the rock band Too Smooth. Formed in 1973, Too Smooth featured stunning songs and twin guitar runs; intricate time changes and fall-off-the-cliff dynamics; riverine vocal melodies, close gospel harmonies and bubbling musical improvisations. These were elements of what was coming to be called progressive rock and associated with acts ranging from Yes to Wishbone Ash - yet Too Smooth also offered a decided tip of the hat to the proud tradition of Lone Star boogie, blues, and hard rock. Too Smooth should have become one of the most successful rock acts in the world; as it turned out, they had to settle for simply being one of the best. BIOGRAPHY The genesis of Too Smooth came from the fortuitous collision of two groups, the Austin band Phoenix, with guitarist Jeff Clark and drummer Tom Holden, and Applejack from Beeville with guitarist Brian Wooten and bass player Danny Swinney. Clark and Holden were the primary vocalists and songwriters, and each had a distinctive compositional flair: Holden wrote with a bluesy, barroom energy while Clark's tunes were more fluid and melodic. Wooten co-wrote many of the early years' staple songs and quickly developed into a songwriter of equal prowess to Clark and Holden. Swinney contributed to the material, as well, and each song underwent a filtering process wherein the entire group arranged and imprinted the songs in rehearsal and live performance. As such, despite a diversity of sonic possibilities on any given song, there was a without question an exuberant and distinct Too Smooth sound. This was polished, early on, in what must have seemed a prescription setting for a young rock band; the quartet lived on a 42-acre farm outside Austin, paying $500 a month rent and subsisting largely on a diet of vegetables that had everything to do with poverty and very little with any attempts at nutrition. Though the lushly fertile Austin scene was at the time drunk - literally and metaphorically - on the whole redneck rock movement, Too Smooth became hugely popular almost overnight, filling the big name clubs of the day and establishing a virtual residency at the town's most famous venue, Armadillo World Headquarters. In 1974, the band signed a deal with the Just Sunshine label and recorded an album in Sausalito - work was being completed at the same time as Just Sunshine was engulfed by ABC/Dunhill as part of a larger corporate takeover. Too Smooth returned to Austin wiser and optimistic - and continued a gradual conquering of not just Central Texas but the whole state. In addition to record crowds in nightclubs, they began to perform with national touring acts. They appeared with - and frequently destroyed - headliners such as Ted Nugent, Spirit, Aerosmith, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Rush, Judas Priest, Ten Years After, Roxy Music, Foreigner, Rory Gallagher, and The Kinks. Gigs at the Armadillo became concert events, and Too Smooth drew over 6000 people in one of the most successful shows of the city's famous outdoor music series at Zilker Hillside. The guys continued to write new material and, about a year after the Just Sunshine fiasco, the Artists & Relations exec who had originally signed them for that label surfaced at Buddha Records, which at the time was a considerable force in the music industry as home to such acts as Charlie Daniels and Gladys Knight & the Pips. This time Too Smooth was flown to the legendary Criteria studios in Miami where they began to record. The idea was for the company to release a Too Smooth single, develop some momentum and name recognition for the band, and then follow up w