Texas country music legend Tommy Alverson is coming to Abilene to perform at the 4th annual Outlaws & Legends Music Fest on March 28th. While he gets ready to pack up and head this way, Tommy took a few minutes to talk with me on the KEAN 105 Afternoon Show.

As the host of the Family Gathering every October, Alverson knows firsthand what it's like to be part of a huge music event. In the first part of our conversation, we talked about how he was looking forward to letting someone else do all the work, and he gets to stick to doing the fun part (playing live). "From what I've heard from last time I was at outlaws & Legends, Mark [Powell] has really stepped it up a notch or two, so we're really looking forward to letting him take all the problems and us just getting up there and doing what we do best.". Tommy also talked about his music style, which is mainly fun, upbeat country music. He tells us, "Yeah, we like to have fun with it, you know. To pretty much keep a smile on everybody's face if we can. I think there's enough of that dark, introverted stuff to go around without me having to jump on the bandwagon.". Check out part one of Tommy Alverson's visit to the KEAN Afternoon Show:

Tommy Alverson Interview - Part 1

In the second part of my conversation with Tommy Alverson, we talked about how important it is to understand and appreciate the history of music. "God bless Robert Earl [Keen], I love him to death and he's always been kind to me, but [music] didn't start with Robert Earl Keen, you know? These kids think it did, and it just didn't. It goes way further back than that. There's lots and lots of real good old country music that's out there and people haven't heard. So, sometimes we'll go back and find [and old country song] and redo it and put it out there. And I think it's important that people go back and study a little bit of why we're all here doing what we're doing, you know what I mean?". Alverson goes on to say, "I've always thought there's two kinds of music. 'Good music' and 'bad music' and most of what's come out of Texas for the last 150 years has been good. A lot of this new stuff, I don't understand, but that's not for me to understand, I guess.".

Tommy also talked about a new project - a collection of live performances from his festival, The Family Gathering - which should be out this summer. "It's going to be from last year's (2013) Gathering. We've got tracks from Deryl Dodd, Chris Wall, The Tejas Brothers...Jamie Richards, of course myself. I think we've got 10 or 12 real good live tracks.". Take a listen to part two of Tommy Alverson's visit to the KEAN Afternoon Show:

Tommy Alverson Interview - Part 2

Don't miss Tommy Alverson's performance at the 4th Annual Outlaws & Legends Music Fest to benefit the Ben Richey Boys Ranch. He takes the stage Saturday, March 29th at 3:00pm.

Here's Tommy Alverson performing 'Texas One More Time' on the TV show 'Texas Music Scene'.

More From KEAN 105