"I grew up on the east side of San Antonio, Texas in the early fifties.

I had a little girlfriend down on the corner who I was always trying to impress with my guitar playing, but she never was impressed because she said her daddy had a real band. He had a honkytonk band. They played all over the Texas area. They played at a club right down the street from where I lived - an old Texas honky tonk, and at night, with no air conditioning in the house I used to open all the windows in the bedroom and listen to them playing down there. I was really into music at a very young age, so later on when I went to work in the music business (I went to work with Johnny Bush and later with Willie Nelson) I realized that those guys played in that band, which was called The Mission City Playboys.

Willie was the bass player and Johnny Bush was the drummer. So we called this project The Mission City Playboy kind of in honor of that. So if you're from Texas and know anything about the fifties and any background on Willie, you know about the Mission City Playboys. And if you didn't know anything about them, you do now. " -Larry

Dave Isbell & Mission City Playboys
Left to right: Dave Isbell, Johnny Bush, Willie Nelson, Cosett Holland, Carl Walder, Frog Isbell

Walter Ranch House
San Antonio, Texas, 1954
Picture courtesy of www.johnnybush.com

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