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Will & The Wilderness debuts with “Tall Tales from Texas”

Part of the Austin music scene for more than 20 years, singer/songwriter/bass player Will Dupuy brings his new band to light with the November release of Tall Tales From Texas. A long time member of the much loved South Austin Jug Band as well as a sideman to such Texas headliners as Bob Schneider, Bruce Robison, Kelly Willis, and Jason Boland & the Stragglers, and beloved children’s act, AKA Mr. Will, Dupuy brings his best songs and a stellar backup band to a debut overflowing with the sound of traditional Texas country with his own personal little twist.

With producer Brian Beken (Robert Earl Keen, South Austin Jug Band, Milkdrive) by his side, Dupuy lays down nine originals, a co-write with Shawn Nelson (“Devils River”) and Neil Tramell’s “Valentine Texas.” It reflects his lifelong travels throughout Texas as well as making for a perfect new soundtrack to anyone’s quarantine. The whole project took all of seven days at the beginning of 2020, with Dupuy being lucky enough to invite friends, some of Austin’s best players, to join in, including Noah Jeffries, Joe Faulhaber, Trevor Nealon, Geoff Queen, Trevor Smith, Michael Lefkowitz and Josh and Max Baca.

“My idea,” Dupuy explains, “was to put together a list of 20 songs I have written over my 20-year career, and let my friends and family weigh in on which songs they liked the best.” The most recent of those, the sultry “Summer Sunset,” features a lengthy fiddle jam that takes the song to an exciting new place. The sturdy country-rock of “Devils River” feels bright despite its slightly dark underpinnings, and the West Texas boogie “Sanderson” adds to the expansive sensibilities one finds throughout Tall Tales From Texas.

Dupuy sticks to traditional Texas country as well, from the bittersweet opener “Cactus and Caliche,” to the honky-tonk shuffle “City of Blue Lights,” to “Give Me A Ride,” a super tall tale told countrypolitan style. There’s even a touch of Tex-Mex with “La Tampiquena,” a bilingual number about being hungover in the Chihuahuan desert featuring Josh and Max Baca from the multiple Grammy winning band Los Texmaniacs.

Texas-born and bred, Will Dupuy received the music gene from his mother, Virginia; a Grammy-nominated opera singer who currently teaches voice at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. In the late 1990s, Dupuy started at Trinity University in San Antonio where he met Brian Duckworth, fiddle player for the Robert Earl Keen band. Duckworth introduced him to Texas country singer-songwriter Rodney Hayden. Dupuy joined Hayden’s band and never looked back. With the South Austin Jug Band only playing very occasionally of late, Dupuy keeps busy as Mr. Will, a children’s performer with the ability to both educate and entertain, who’s also released 2 compact discs featuring an eclectic mix of fun originals and sprite cover tunes. Dupuy’s new musical endeavor, Will and the Wilderness keep true to his taste for all sorts of American music. While concentrating on his satisfying originals, they mix in songs from Robert Earl Keen, Townes Van Zandt, the Grateful Dead, and a few unexpected surprises. He’s also a member of Fennario Flats, a bluegrass exploration of the Grateful Dead canon with some of Austin’s best biggest Deadheads and best acoustic musicians.

“I set out to make a record that encompassed a lot of the styles and textures that I personally enjoy, and help tell my musical story. I’m darn lucky to have such talented friends that were willing to go on this Tall Tales from Texas journey with me. For this, I am eternally grateful!”

Will and the Wilderness-Tall Tales From Texas
by Will Dupuy

When I got accepted to the Texas Commission on the Arts touring roster and KT Gardner started booking Mr. Will shows, she suggested I make a record of my "adult music" so that she could sell both of my acts to festivals and other buyers. My "adult music" ambitions have been pretty limited the last 8 years as we have been raising a couple of kids, and the night time gig schedules don't really lend themselves to getting up early with the kiddos. Now that the kids are a little older, I am looking forward to playing gigs a little more often, in whatever that looks like post COVID.

My idea was to put together a list of 20 songs I have written over my 20 year career, and let my friends and family weigh in on which songs they liked the best. Everything from my South Austin Jug Band days to La Tampiquena, to a handful of originals I have written in the last 8 years. We whittled this list down to 11 songs, and I hired Austin's best musicians (who happen to be some of my best friends) to play on it. I decided early on I wanted to have someone else in the production chair, so I hired Brian Beken (Robert Earl Keen, Milkdrive, SAJB) to produce and I am so impressed with his production and hard work on this record.

We started the record in January 2020, and knocked it out in 7 days. When COVID hit, I didn't see any reason to put it out anytime soon, so I sat on it for several months until I realized that people might be craving a new soundtrack for their quarantine. Also, with all of the uncertainty in the world, why the hell not?

Recently, we went back in the studio to record an additional song, "Summer Sunset" because I wanted this record to basically be "my best songs so far" and this song definitely has its own vibe. The record is called Tall Tales from Texas because every song has a tie to the Lone Star State either direct or implied. Also, in the last two decades, there have been some questionable songs written about Texas, and hopefully these tunes are better than those! So while this isn't a true concept record, these songs represent genuine experiences that I've had in my 40 years of living in Texas.

Devils River:

My buddy Shawn Nelson and I were discussing the Devils River one day and he asked where the river was located. I said, "The Devils River runs through the backdoor of Sonora". He immediately sang that line back to me, and we were off to the races. For a while, Shawn and I had been talking about a fictitious country singer named Gary Rivers, and how we should write a concept record about him. We are probably 10 songs deep into that concept, so one day the Saga of Gary Rivers could very well come to light. Shawn has released it on two of his records. Dom Fisher (Wood and Wire) has also recorded a bluegrass version of it for a future solo release.

Sanderson:

This song came to me when my family was driving home from Big Bend. We usually take I-10 home for efficiency's sake, but as it was snowing, I-10 was shut down and iced over. As a result, we took hwy 90 home, and I saw a part of Texas that I'd never experienced. The first town after Marathon on 90 is a town called Sanderson. As I'd never been there, I was blown away at the beauty of the canyon surrounding the town. I decided to write a song about the town for no other reason than no one else had yet. I tried to make it a song about loving commitment, but I'll let the listener decide on that one.

Feelin’ Easy:

I wrote this song after one of my friends got hooked on meth after he'd led a pretty straight life for a while, gotten married, and had a child. At this point in my life, I've seen a lot of my friends cotton to the domestic type of family life that was expected of us, and some of my friends absolutely fail miserably at it. In some cases, addiction was to blame. What’s strange is after my own brother passed, I saw some haunting parallels in the story line, not from an addiction standpoint, but rather riding the ugly road of grief after a traumatic loss. In my mind that is kind of the beauty of writing songs and creating art in general, that this song means different things to different people depending on where they are emotionally. I always tell people, "Be careful what you write, it might just come true."

Valentine TX:

This song was written by my good friend Neil Trammell. He and I met at Trinity University in San Antonio, and immediately became fast friends. We shared a mutual appreciation for the Titan of Texas Americana, Robert Earl Keen. Unfortunately, we spent more time trying to write good songs than in the classroom, and we both failed out. I moved to Austin where we started the South Austin Jug Band, and Neil moved to Alpine, where he lives today. Valentine, Texas is barely a town just west of Marfa, and the big thing to do in the Trans Pecos is to mail your Valentine from Valentine TX on Valentine's Day. They have a special postmark that is designed by the high school students in Marfa, in fact it's a contest every year, and the winner gets to have their art be the postmark from Valentine. Neil wrote this pretty little love song about a college girlfriend, and we needed a pretty love song on this record.

Mountain Whiskey:

I wrote this song while touring Colorado with the Jug band in probably 2005. Not much to say about it, but it's a booty shaker and gives the band a nice vehicle to jam over. I guess I could say it's my version of an Appalachian old time bootlegger tune with a modern day spin.

Give Me a Ride:

I wrote this song after a very odd encounter. I was driving to work in West Austin, and had stopped at the 7-11 on Lake Austin Boulevard for coffee. As I was leaving, this woman, probably in her 50's, asked me, "Hey can you give me a ride?" I was like "Okay?" So she says, "Okay I'll be right back" and proceeds to go back in the 7-11 and buy like 4 bottles of cheap wine. She gets in the car, and tells me, "I walked down here, I didn't realize it was so cold. My husband left town and took the keys to the car." She then tells me how she got trashed at her sons football game a few days earlier, and how they live in Lakeway, but her husband sent her to the Tarrytown house to dry out, maybe? Anyways I drive her to her house, and she tells me she didn't start smoking until she was in her 40s and she likes to hang out at Deep Eddy Cabaret. As she gets out of the car, she says, "you could have been a serial killer" and hands me a blank check without signing it or anything. It was quite a strange morning. So naturally I wrote it into a song, and it's super popular in West Austin.

City of Blue Lights:

In my opinion, there are not enough Honky Tonk shuffles being written these days. I like to musically explore a lot of different genres. But by birth I am partial to real country music, and for my money, “King George” Strait is the best, hands down. Of course, heartache is a core ingredient to what he sings about and that is what this song is about. Where would country music be without infidelity?

Summer Sunset:

I was in a good songwriting space in 2004, mostly because I didn't have any real responsibilities other than playing in the Jug Band. I don't really know how this song came about, other than I had the Grateful Dead in mind. I wasn't really a Deadhead then( like I am now), but I had an intense curiosity about the Jam Band scene in general, as we were playing in Colorado and across the West Coast at the time. I guess you could call this my "Terrapin Station.” Also, this song has a variation of every lettered chord there is, for example, there's an A minor, a B7, a C, a D, an E minor, an F, and of course a G. Nerdy quirks, but that's the musician in me. I guess this song is about being present in the quiet introspective times of life, but maybe it's just me trying to sneak “heady imagery” into my music.

Cactus and Caliche:

This song is about a high school girlfriend going off to college, breaking up with you, and joining a christian cult. It resolves itself at the end, but it hurt like hell at the time. I don’t know a songwriter worth their salt that hasn’t experienced some sort of heartache in their life, it’s up to the good ones to make it into art.

La Tampiquena:

This is a silly little bilingual song about my first trip to Terlingua with Neil Trammell and playing La Kiva before the original owner, Glenn Felts, got murdered. It's about being hungover and trying to get excited about sailing the uncharted waters of the Chihuahuan desert to entertain the locals and tourist alike.

Pedernales:

I wrote this song in 2004 and I'd obviously been jamming "Shotgun Willie" as well as "Flatland Farmer" by Terry Allen. My cousins have a ranch on the Pedernales outside of Johnson City, so this landed in my lap. Fast forward to 2009, we are all at the ranch trying to ride tubes down the Pedernales when my friend Scott lost his tube. He didn't lose his hat, his beer or his glasses, but he lost his $2000 platinum wedding ring. We spent four drunken hours trying to find it to no avail. Again, just goes to show, be careful what you write, it can come back to bite you in the booty.

Song Credits:

Devils River: (2010) by Will Dupuy

Will Dupuy: Bass and vocals

Michael Lefkowitz: Drums

Noah Jeffries: fiddle and acoustic guitar

Joe Faulhaber: electric guitar

Geoff Queen: pedal steel

Brian Beken: electric guitar and harmony vocals

Sanderson: 2015 by Will Dupuy

Will Dupuy: Bass and vocals

Michael Lefkowitz: Drums

Noah Jeffries: fiddle and acoustic guitar

Joe Faulhaber: electric guitar

Geoff Queen: pedal steel

Brian Beken: electric guitar and harmony vocals

Feelin Easy: 2012 By Will Dupuy

Will Dupuy: Bass and vocals

Michael Lefkowitz: Drums

Noah Jeffries: fiddle and acoustic guitar

Joe Faulhaber: electric guitar

Geoff Queen: pedal steel

Brian Beken: electric guitar and harmony vocals

Trevor Smith: banjo

Valentine TX (2003) By Neil Trammell

Will Dupuy: Bass and vocals

Michael Lefkowitz: Drums

Noah Jeffries: fiddle and acoustic guitar

Joe Faulhaber: electric guitar

Geoff Queen: pedal steel

Brian Beken: electric guitar and harmony vocals

Max Baca: Bajo Sexto

Josh Baca: Accordion

Mountain Whiskey 2005 by Will Dupuy

Will Dupuy: Bass and vocals

Michael Lefkowitz: Drums

Noah Jeffries: fiddle and acoustic guitar

Joe Faulhaber: electric guitar

Brian Beken: electric guitar and harmony vocals

Trevor Nealon: hammond B3 organ and clavinet

Give Me A Ride (2009) by Will Dupuy

Will Dupuy: Bass and vocals

Michael Lefkowitz: Drums

Noah Jeffries: acoustic guitar

Joe Faulhaber: electric guitar

Geoff Queen: pedal steel

Brian Beken: electric guitar and harmony vocals

Trevor Nealon: wurlitzer electric piano

City of Blue Lights (2008) by Will Dupuy

Will Dupuy: Bass and vocals

Michael Lefkowitz: Drums

Noah Jeffries: fiddle and acoustic guitar, first fiddle solo

Joe Faulhaber: electric guitar

Geoff Queen: pedal steel

Brian Beken: electric guitar and harmony vocals, second fiddle solo

Summer Sunset: (2003) by Will Dupuy

Will Dupuy: Bass and vocals

Michael Lefkowitz: Drums

Noah Jeffries: fiddle and acoustic guitar

Joe Faulhaber: electric guitar

Geoff Queen: pedal steel

Brian Beken: harmony vocals

Trevor Smith: banjo

Trevor Nealon: piano and hammond b3 organ

Cactus and Caliche (2000) by Will Dupuy

Will Dupuy: Bass and vocals

Michael Lefkowitz: Drums

Noah Jeffries: fiddle and acoustic guitar

Joe Faulhaber: electric guitar

Geoff Queen: pedal steel

Brian Beken: electric guitar and harmony vocals

Trevor Nealon: piano

La Tampiquena (2008) by Will Dupuy

Will Dupuy: Bass

Michael Lefkowitz: Drums

Noah Jeffries: acoustic guitar

Joe Faulhaber: electric guitar

Geoff Queen: pedal steel

Brian Beken: harmony vocals

Max Baca: Bajo Sexto

Josh Baca: Accordion

Pedernales (2003) by Will Dupuy

Will Dupuy: Bass and vocals

Michael Lefkowitz: Drums

Noah Jeffries: fiddle and acoustic guitar

Joe Faulhaber: electric guitar

Brian Beken: electric guitar and harmony vocals

Trevor Nealon: hammond B3 organ and clavinet

Contact Us!

Booking

KT Gardner- Rootstock Artists

512-207-0825 or ktrootstock@gmail.com

contact the band

will.dupuy@gmail.com