Randall King is well on his way to making it big time.
A standout from the Texas music scene over the past year, King has built quite a following with his neo-traditional sound, highlighted by his crooning country vocals and impressive songwriting chops to match.
There is no doubt that King has the commercial appeal to follow in Parker McCollum’s footsteps, and it’s just a matter of time until he finds himself with some radio hits and arena tours. Once it happens, that’ll be a win for country music with another one of the good guys making it mainstream.
But much like Parker, one of the cool things about King is that his influences don’t only come from the classic ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s country hits that we all have always loved, but also from the Texas country music scene that his been responsible for a large portion of the best country-ish music over the last couple of decades.
A native of Hereford, Texas, near Amarillo, King spent some time at Texas Tech University in the West Texas music mecca of Lubbock, where he cut his teeth in the scene and learned firsthand from many of its greats.
This notion was made apparent once again in a recent post to King’s Instagram, in which he covered William Clark Green’s timeless heater “Dead or In Jail.” And if that wasn’t cool enough, King crushes this cover in a Cody Jinks shirt, too.
William Clark Green, in my opinion, is one of the most underrated country artists out there. Another Lubbock artist, by way of Texas Tech, who has been a mainstay in the Texas scene for nearly decades at this point, Green has a deep catalog of timeless classics and hidden gems.
With his spectacular 2022 album Baker Hotel, and his work with West Texas supergroup The Panhandlers, Green continues to prove year after year how great of a songwriter and overall artist he is.
And while I am a fan of anything that William Clark Green does, it just so happens that “Dead or in Jail” is off of my favorite album of his, and one of my favorite albums ever, 2013’s Rose Queen.
An 11 track project without a single weak link, Rose Queen includes one of Green’s biggest hits in “She Likes the Beatles,” and it’s cool to know that Randall King is a fan of the album as well. Check out the original version of “Dead or in Jail” by the great William Clark Green here.
Randall King, who is becoming the king (no pun intended) of social media covers, also recently posted a video from him covering Easton Corbin’s 2010 hit “A Little More Country Than That.” And he’s still rocking that Cody Jinks shirt.
And in case you aren’t familiar with any of King’s original work, here are a few of my favorites. It seems as if King could blow up just about any day now, and it’ll be awesome when he does
“Reason to Quit” – Randall King (2018)
“Another Bullet” – Another Bullet EP (2016)
“You in a Honky Tonk” – Shot Glass (2022)
And since we’ve been showing his covers here, he recorded a version of the gospel classic “I’ll Fly Away” on his 2022 record Shot Glass that’s pretty awesome as well.
