Reid releases a new album containing a collection of his favorite recordings: 'Digging into these songs again after so long was a labor of love and fun'

West Texas native Rusty Reid is a singer-songwriter whose musical style marries indie folk, country and rock.

He has lived across the country, including several places in Texas, Nashville and Los Angeles. The inspiration for his music derives from the 1960s countercultural movements, and his lyrics examine philosophy, politics and spirituality. 

His latest album, “Bayou Line: Songs from Houston,” is a compilation of rerecordings of his most loved songs, including the ones with lyrics reminiscent of 1960s folk, which were written during his time in Houston and were unreleased to the public. His music is heavily influenced by country, British pop, surf and psychedelic rock. Reid's songwriting skills were honed while at the University of Houston and as a staff songwriter in Nashville. 

While living in Los Angeles, Reid pursued pop/rock-oriented music. While he struggled to find this niche, he returned to Houston to complete his college degree, playing in bands and writing magazine articles.

In 1990, he began a solo journey around the world, which led to a new sense of spirituality and consciousness. Although he has faced some obstacles in his music career, Reid's creativity began to flow again in 2014, resulting in "Head to Heart," a 78-minute "Revolutionary Manifesto in Song."

Houston Daily recently talked to Reid about his long musical career and asked why he is releasing a new album.

Reid’s inspiration for releasing “Bayou Line” was his need to dig into the archives and rerecord some of the songs he wrote, recorded or played live in the fall of 1970 through the spring of 1984.

“I came to Houston from Midland to attend the University of Houston. When I arrived in Houston, I was essentially a beginning songwriter,” Reid said. “By the time I left, I had progressed rather dramatically. Indeed, some of my longtime fans still think these are my best songs. I attribute that to their simple familiarity, as I believe I’m a much better singer-songwriter than I was then. But I realized I didn’t have perfect recordings of these songs. When I belatedly discovered you could record at home and enlist players from around the world to join in, I seized the opportunity to, at long last, get these songs out in a decent form. Digging into these songs again after so long was a labor of love and fun. So now they have finally been released to the wild.”

According to Reid, “Bayou Line” may not be easily understood by listeners and reviewers. He’s not sure they will put their finger on just what genre he’s operating in.

“I’ve given up and just call it indie-folk-pop-country-rock,” Reid said. “From a business standpoint, it’s a bad idea to be genre-hopping like this. Everybody likes easy labels and consistency. But I gotta do me. My other two albums, 'NWXSW' (Northwest by Southwest, my journey), released in 2001, and 'Head to Heart,' released in 2019, each has a similar array of styles and themes. The first album includes a few songs contemporaneous with these 'Bayou Line' songs and recorded in Houston, along with other tunes I later wrote and recorded in Los Angeles and Seattle. All those songs on that first album were recorded with my band or solo. This album is more like 'Head to Heart' in that everything has been recently recorded with the help of those far-flung musicians. I wish we had had this technology and capability back in the day. But 'Head to Heart' is philosophical, political and spiritual (not religious). At the same time, the new album only has a few songs that hint of the direction my songwriting would one day take.” 

Reid told Houston Daily about his future projects and his desire to bring his band back together — but he's not opposed to going solo.

“I have three other albums pretty much done, except for some bits and pieces,” he said. “One features a collection of songs recorded in the 1980s by my Houston band, The Unreasonables. I hadn’t listened to those recordings for years. When I finally did, I realized, well, what do you know, we were pretty good. I’m looking forward to getting those albums out. I’m also hoping to play live in Houston sometime, somewhere, acoustic solo probably, since my 'band' these days lives in Seattle, Portland, L.A., Nashville, New York, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, London, Berlin and Mumbai.”

Reid’s most recent singles include a cover of Lone Justice's 1980s hit "Shelter" and two politically charged songs, "American Villain" and "The United States of Selfishness," which were released in November 2020