The Wagoneers
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Wagoneers were an American country music band from Austin, Texas that were briefly active during the 1980s. The band consisted of Monte Warden on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Brent Wilson playing lead and contributing backing vocals, Craig Allan Pettigrew on bass, and drummer Thomas A. Lewis, Jr.
The Wagoneers' debut album, Stout and High, was released by Herb Alpert's A&M Records in 1988; a follow-up album, Good Fortune, was released in 1989. Although the band appeared on Austin City Limits and Nashville Now, their popularity never took off and they band broke up in 1990.
"There were a lot of reasons why the Wags didn't happen on a bigger scale," said Monte Warden in a 1995 interview, when he was pursuing a solo career. "Number one, we were on a pop label (A&M) that had never attempted to get in the country market before. Two, even though it was just four or five years ago, that was light years in regards to country's popularity and we were a different group, a bit unique at that time. That, and maybe country radio wasn't just ready for those songs. It doesn't matter what the success level was, for me; I was just pleased to get to make records." [1]
The Wagoneers still have their fans; a MySpace page dedicated to the band contains audio clips from their two albums and the CMT blog dubbed them "best rockabilly band that ever was” [2]
