Biographies

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My name is Doug Moreland.  I'm a west Texas fiddler, songwriter, and entertainer (and chainsaw artist!).  I currently reside near Austin Texas, and travel throughout the state and abroad performing my own songs with an original, swingin', country & western band.  I simply call it The Doug Moreland Show.  (Left: photo by Kerry Hock, 2007)

The Doug Moreland Show currently performs around 150 shows per year around the state and abroad.  Internationally, we have performed in Bocas del Toro, Panama, as well as in festivals in Holland, Germany, Belgium, and France.  We have performed with well-established acts such as Willie Nelson and Asleep At The Wheel.  Upcoming dates include the MusicFest in Steamboat Springs, Colorado in January 2009, and a European tour in July 2009.  (Right: photo 2003)

I received a Will Rogers Cowboy Award for Western Music Male Performer of the Year at the Academy of Western Artists Awards show in August 2007. I also won Entertainer of the Year at the Texas Music Awards in April 2007.

I have recorded 3 live albums and 3 studio albums, all songs written or co-written by myself.  I contributed original recordings on KVET's Christmas and Gospel compilation albums, and on K.R. Wood's Fathers Of Texas Series Davy Crockett's Fiddle Plays On, which was recorded live at the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas (the first and only recordings ever held there).  My latest studio project involves Ray Benson at his Bismeaux Studios in Austin, Texas, and is due out early 2009.   (Left: photo by Freddy Martinez, 2007)

Doug was born & raised in the Davis Mountains of Texas. He took piano & violin lessons there as a child, but never showed a genuine interest until his latter teens.  His musical influence came mainly from his father, who played fiddle & guitar in his own cowboy band.  Doug decided at the age of 17 to pursue a musical career, leaving Fort Davis directly upon high school graduation and heading off to Levelland, Texas to attend South Plains College for study in commercial music.  He played fiddle for the Bent Tree Jamboree Dinner Theater in Ruidoso, NM during the summers of 1993 to 1996, and in the Barleen Family Dinner Theatre in Phoenix, AZ over the winters of 1995 & 1996.  While in Phoenix, he acquired a McNab puppy he named Holly-peño, who eventually became a significant element to his musical act.  Between 1994 & 1999, Doug moved between Phoenix, Ruidoso, Nashville, East Tennessee, Dallas, and Austin several times, playing fiddle with numerous cover bands and picking up odd jobs in between.  In 1999, Doug decided he would rather work for himself and play his own songs, so with the help of friend John Wheeler (of later Hayseed-Dixie fame), he recorded his first two albums, with all-original material, and made a final move to Austin to start up his own band.  He didn't get his band put together, but he got himself in the middle of the emerging Texas Music circuit, opening shows for the likes of Cory Morrow, Pat Green, Roger Creager, and others.  Doug stood out with his musical comedy routine accompanied by just a guitar and a fiddle-playing dog.  In 2000, Doug & Holly co-hosted the Willie Nelson picnic and recorded a Live album in front of a sold out College Station crowd.  Doug recorded another Live album in 2002 (his fourth).  In 2003, the duo appeared on national television as guests of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Animal Planet's Pet Star, and Ripley's Believe It Or Not.  In 2004, Doug released his 5th album Everybody Knows My Name (full studio production) under his own BigHat Records label.  He finally got his Big Hat Band put together that year, but felt discontent with the instrumentation.  He also lost Holly-peño his singing & fiddle-playing sidekick in July 2004, so he decided to start all over in 2005.  Doug reformed his show as an all-acoustic trio (fiddle, guitar, and upright bass), with their debut performance opening for Willie Nelson!  By the end of 2005, the Doug Moreland Show was in full swing as a 5-piece band with the addition of drums and piano.  2006 saw things growing even bigger as his new group recorded & produced their own full-band project titled Doug Moreland.  This 6th album released in October 2006.  Rounding up 2007, the band replaced the piano with a steel guitar, and then started up plans for a new album in summer 2008 under the production of Grammy winning artists Ray Benson & Asleep At The Wheel. (photo Gruene Hall, 2004)

Dan Johnson

Dan was born into a musical family.  His great-grandmother played piano and sang in private clubs back in the 40’s and 50’s.  Both his great-grandfather and grandfather were fiddlers.  And Dan’s father was a professional musician all of his life, and was a top mandolin player in Houston at the time of his death nine years ago.  Dan credits his dad as his musical inspiration.  He started Dan playing guitar at the age of 12, and encouraged him do his first national tour at the age of 17 while he was still in high school.  Dan spent two years at Alvin Junior College studying sound production before he turned his sights on the steel guitar.  He has toured with Hank Williams III, John Evans, and Jarrod Birmingham, prior to joining Doug Moreland in 2007.   In the fall of 2007, Dan released his first solo steel guitar album The Curse of the Fender Triple Eight.  Although he was born in Florida, Dan counts Texas as home, having lived here since he was eight years old.  (photo by Alfred Mathis of The Studio - Tyler, Texas, 2007)