Singer still has that love for performing
“We had these talent shows every year in Anahuac. When I was a junior in high school, I decided to enter with some of my friends. We performed ‘Free Bird’ by Lynyrd Skynyrd. I played the lead part and sang. I had my Sears electric guitar with these cool built-in effects like fuzz and distortion. And I had an amp stack. I wanted that big sound. We got a standing ovation, and we should have won. These little kids won instead. I guess they were too cute or something. But that experience really had an impact on me, seeing how it made people’s emotions react.
“Another time I made this girl cry when I played a real sad song that I wrote. That’s when I thought, wow, I’ve got some kind of power here. I like this. Music, I can do this.
“Ever since I was 10, when I started listening to Beatles records that my aunt had, I wanted to become a famous singer. I wanted to have a band that was legendary. I didn’t want to be a one-night wonder. I wanted the money and the respect and the fame. Our band, the Texas Hurricanes, did well for a long time. For 20 years we played gigs all over. We could do country, rock, just about any genre. One time someone asked if I could do rap. I said, yep. I could do ‘Wild Thing’ by Tone Loc. It’s not gangsta rap, but it’s still rap. We were pretty popular. People loved us. But we never made it real big. We never got that big recording contract.
“I haven’t lost that love for performing in front of people, though. These days, I do it from this mobile rig I built. I call it E.T. I’ll get off work and ride over to places like Walmart, Kroger or Lowe’s, and I’ll sing on Facebook Live. It’s not the big time, but it’s still fun. I still enjoy it. I do it out of that love for music.”
— Holt Maggard
(Note: Holt Maggard died as the result of a traffic accident on June 18, 2021.)
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RIP Hurricane Holt
He was going home after leaving a friends doing what he loved best. He was singing and recording music. He wanted to go on the VOICE. We picked the song and had figured how we thought he should preform it and what angles would be the best to grab. We even discussed how to take E.T. apart to take with us when he was picked.