About Little Texas
Little Texas is an American country music band started in Nashville, Tennessee. The band consists of Porter Howell , Del Gray , Dwayne O'Brien , and Duane Propes . They, along with Tim Rushlow and Brady Seals , formed the band in 1988. Signed to Warner Bros. Records Nashville in 1991, Little Texas released its debut album First Time for Everything that year. The album's lead off single, "Some Guys Have All the Love", reached a peak of No. 8 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts. Little Texas charted thirteen top-40 hits between then and 1995, including the number one "My Love" in 1994. Their debut album earned a gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America , while 1993's Big Time was certified double platinum and 1994's Kick a Little was certified platinum.
Seals left the band in 1994 and was replaced by Jeff Huskins soon after. After a Greatest Hits package and a self-titled fourth studio album, the group disbanded in 1997. Seals went on to record three solo albums and one as the lead singer of Hot Apple Pie, while Rushlow recorded one solo album and one as the lead singer of Rushlow. Gray, Howell, O'Brien, and Propes re-established Little Texas in 2004 with new lead singer Steven Troy, who quickly left the band and resulted in Porter Howell taking over as lead vocalist. Under the four-piece lineup, the band has recorded two albums for Montage Music Group: The Very Best of Little Texas: Live and Loud and Missing Years.
Little Texas was founded in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1988. Prior to the band's formation, Tim Rushlow and Dwayne O'Brien began playing together in Arlington, Texas, in 1984. Porter Howell and Duane Propes got together while they were in high school in 1983 and moved to Nashville to attend Belmont University. Brady Seals and Del Gray played in the backup band of country music singer Josh Logan. Rushlow, O'Brien, Propes, and Howell first started making music at Opryland as a 1950s show band. With both Rushlow's first wife and Howell's wife, plus two other members, they took the show band on the road, naming their act "The Varsities".
When two of the members left to pursue other interests, they contacted their old friends Gray and Seals, whom they had met while playing in Springfield, Massachusetts, in hopes of forging a more country/Southern rock sound. All six members eventually moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where they started playing together. The band played at venues across the United States , eventually catching the attention of Nashville's division of Warner Bros. Records.
Warner Bros. signed Little Texas in 1989, and two years later, the band released their debut single "Some Guys Have All the Love". This song, which reached No. 8 on the U.S. Billboard country singles charts, was the first of five singles from their debut album First Time for Everything. After the debut single came the album's title track at No. 13, "You and Forever and Me" at No. 5, "What Were You Thinkin'" at No. 17 and finally "I'd Rather Miss You" at No. 16. The album was certified gold by the RIAA for shipping 500,000 copies in the US.
Little Texas' second album, Big Time, was issued in 1993. Their most successful album, it was certified 2×Platinum by the RIAA and gold by the CRIA. It also produced a minor crossover hit in leadoff single "What Might Have Been", a No. 2 country hit that also reached No. 74 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 16 on Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks. After it came "God Blessed Texas" and their only number 1 hit on Billboard, "My Love", both of which were also minor Hot 100 entries. The latter also featured Seals on lead vocals. Finishing off Big Time was the No. 14 "Stop on a Dime". In late 1993, the band contributed a cover of the Eagles' "Peaceful Easy Feeling" to the multi-artist compilation album Common Thread: The Songs of the Eagles. The rendition featured O'Brien on lead vocals, with Denny Dadmun-Bixby of Great Plains on bass guitar and no involvement from Seals. The rendition peaked at number 73 on the country charts.
Kick a Little, the band's third album, was certified platinum by the RIAA. Leading off this album was its No. 5 title track, followed by the No. 4 "Amy's Back in Austin" and No. 27 "Southern Grace". After the album's release, however, Seals left for a solo career on Reprise Records, and was replaced by multi-instrumentalist Jeff Huskins, a former backing musician for Clint Black, for their tour to promote the album. Huskins made his first appearance on "Life Goes On" and "Country Crazy", two new tracks that the band recorded for their 1995 Greatest Hits. Both of these songs were released as singles. The former became their final Top 40 hit with a peak of No. 5, while "Country Crazy" stopped at No. 44. Also in 1995, the band sang on the track "Party All Night", a musical track which featured snippets from a Jeff Foxworthy sketch and a sung chorus by the band. This song reached No. 53, and later appeared on Foxworthy's 1996 album Crank It Up: The Music Album.
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