Tourists and locals have been tapping their boots to Stockyards staple Brad Hines at live shows and buying CDs from him during breaks for several decades.
CDs, though, are, like, so yesterday. People consider the round silver disks like “beer coasters,” Hines told me with a laugh.
The Texas Music singer-songwriter has decided to join the 21st century.
Since 1990, Hines has played a mixture of original music and cover songs all over North Texas but mostly at the Love Shack and White Elephant Saloon.
He has recorded several CDs of original music and sold thousands over time. In recent years, he’s heard something new from fans: “Where can I download your music?”
The problem is, Hines isn’t all that skilled in technology and never downloaded his songs to online sources such as Pandora, Spotify, or Vevo.
So he teamed up with a longtime music distributor based in the Stockyards. Smith Music puts local musicians’ product into online stores and streaming services and takes a 10 percent commission on the back end.
The first Hines album being put online is Dance With the Eagle, a country rock classic released in 1998 and featuring Andy Timmons and the late Rusty Burns on guitars.
The title track will go first, said D.j. Dugan, marketing and digital delivery technician at Smith Music.
“We’re dropping the one song this Friday, then we will have a second song release a month from now, and then drop the whole album in another month,” he said.
Smith Music is providing Fort Worth Weekly readers with a sneak peek of the first Hines song available online.
