Tex Johnson Has Risen from the Grave

He won’t go away.

Back in the early 60s, the pseudonymous Tex Johnson and an anonymous band of studio musicians ("the Six-Shooters") cut a country-western Christmas album called Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The jacket was made of blue and silver foil, emblazoned with a cartoon of Rudolph pulling Santa’s sleigh through the night skies over a small, snow-covered town. Along with traditional Christmas tunes like "Rudolph," "Go Tell It on the Mountain" and "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," they did a bunch of less-conventional numbers as well, like "Wait for the Wagon"–together with some plain old non-Christmasy cowboy songs, like "Cheyenne." It was the only album the group–whoever they were–recorded under the name "Tex Johnson and His Six- Shooters," and it’s the sort of thing you’d expect to vanish quickly, especially under the avalanche of new Christmas albums by big-name stars that come out every year.

But it doesn’t vanish, even though it never saw a second pressing, so far as I’m aware. It keeps coming back to haunt me.

Not to besmirch the album–it’s a delightful record, and one I still listen to, regardless of the season. It was, in fact, perhaps my entire family’s favorite album, bar none. So much so that recent years have witnessed several major and ugly custody battles over who gets possession of it.

I made mention of this album once, in a holiday-themed story that appeared in this paper some six or seven years ago. Just a single line in which, in passing, along with some other things, I said that it was a record I listened to.

After that story ran, I received one letter from someone who also remembered, and was fond of, that record. I found it an interesting coincidence, nothing more.

This past December, my friend Mike Walsh, who maintains the MissionCreep website where many of my old stories have been posted (with the work of several other people), decided to highlight a few holiday-related stories. He posted a funny, harrowing tale of his own, about his attempts to find seasonal work in a department store. He also posted that old story of mine, with that single, fleeting Tex Johnson reference.

Suddenly, I found myself flooded with e-mails.

Apparently, if you do a Web search for "Tex Johnson," all sorts of things come up. Stories about small-town athletes and big-league baseball players, about Southern politicians and Eric Clapton’s drummer–all of whom shared the name "Tex Johnson." But for all of them, there was only one match, apparently, that referred to that one album by Tex and His Six-Shooters–and that was that old story I wrote.

Well, okay. I wouldn’t say I was flooded with e-mails, exactly–but I did get at least a dozen, which is still pretty hefty, considering. They came from all over the country, written by people in all walks of life, and all of them arrived over the course of about two weeks. Each and every note said exactly the same thing.

"I remember that album from when I was a kid, and I’m trying to find it again now so I can share it with my boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife/kids, etc... But I can’t find any evidence of it anywhere but in this story."

Many of them made me offers of cash money for my copy–all of which I refused, of course. Others asked me to make a tape for them–but at present, I own no stereo equipment that works, so I had to say no to those people, too. One guy told me of his ongoing search for Tex Johnson–but it appears there are no kind souls out there digitizing ol’ Tex and putting him online for the world to enjoy. One man (like me) still had his copy, though it had grown worn and scratched over the years.

"I still pull it out every December," he wrote, "much to the horror of my children."

Other people just wanted to share their memories of this odd music that had made such an impression on them three or four decades ago.

This is all very strange.

I mean, it’s not like talking about the first time you heard the Ramones, or "Jailhouse Rock." There is nothing collective about this. Fact is, I’ve played that record for several people and it hasn’t left any notable imprint on a single one of them.

It was clearly a record that had received a small pressing (there is absolutely no publishing information on the label or the jacket). Yet it made a very deep and lasting impression on a good number of people who heard it back then. So much so that they’re spending perhaps a little too much time as adults trying to track it down–and prompting a bunch of them to write notes to some stranger who mentioned it in passing. Why is this? Or perhaps I should ask, how is this?

I have no clue.

Maybe it’s like Close Encounters–all these people from all over the country having the same vision, the same memory of something they can’t quite track down. Maybe that record was dropped into a dozen record bins around America by aliens, who used it to implant something in our heads for some future use. And maybe that future is now.

Well, it’s, y’know, just an idea. Maybe next time I hear from one of (as I call them) "Tex’s People," I’ll try asking them a few questions.