Clay Blaker

Clay Blaker earned his widest recognition by penning half a dozen numbers that George Strait placed on record, yet he has also built a steady regional following as frontman of the Texas Honky-Tonk Band and has issued four collections of his own songs. Born in Houston and raised in nearby Almeda, Texas, he absorbed contrasting musical tastes at home: his father favored big-band repertoire while his mother preferred country. The resulting range of influences runs from Glenn Miller to Ernest Tubb, and a family film captures the five-year-old Blaker in a green cowboy suit, singing Hank Williams’ “Hey Good Lookin’” on a Roy Rogers model guitar.

An avid surfer, Blaker moved to Maui in 1970, but music grew more central by 1973, drawing him to southern California to be close to friends who played in bands. He launched his own group in 1974 and worked the California coast until December 1976, when the Texas Honky-Tonk Band headed to Houston for a one-week break. Local response proved strong enough that the musicians decided to stay. Blaker began cutting tracks in Houston studios and released his first album, What a Way to Live, in 1981. That same year his longtime friend George Strait appeared on the charts. Blaker and his band supported Strait on many early tour dates, and Strait recorded Blaker’s “The Only Thing That I Have Left”—later re-recorded by Tim McGraw—for the 1982 album Strait from the Heart.

Over the following years Strait, LeAnn Rimes, Clay Walker, and Mark Chesnutt all recorded additional Blaker compositions, while Blaker himself continued to perform chiefly as a local act. His fourth album, Rumor Town, appeared in 1998; Welcome to the Wasteland followed three years later.