Crystal Wise
Angel White performs at Tannahill's Tavern and Music Hall during the Fort Worth Music Festival Saturday night.
It's Saturday night in the heart of the bustling Fort Worth Stockyards, as a throng of concertgoers line up outside of Tannahill's Tavern and Music Hall just before 6 p.m. In nearly an hour, local singer/songwriter Angel White will take the stage for what is one of the final big shows before the festival comes to a close. "This is a dream come true to be able to do this," he says after shaking hands with a few of his fans while making the rounds near the bar. White is all smiles as we head back to the press area to talk about his music journey, which started on the busy streets of Dallas' Deep Ellum.
Crystal Wise
Currently, White is riding high. On this night, he's got one of the most coveted time slots at the second annual Fort Worth Music Festival, 6:45 p.m. at main stage Tannahill's, while touring his 2023 album “Ghost of the West.” White told Texas Standard, “It’s like the Spanish cowboy or the Native cowboy and the Black cowboy are kind of this ghost. And I experience it. It’s like, I guess, a surprise for some people to see me — to see a cowboy of color.”
This blend of influences is a perfect way to describe White’s sound, which takes elements of R&B, pop, and Western music and mixes them together seamlessly to create a unique sound that can only come from a state like Texas.
However, before music was ever on White’s mind, he was a budding football player in the small Johnson County town of Cleburne. Outside of his love of the gridiron, White also aspired to be a veterinarian, a major he took up while on a football scholarship at Southern Nazarene in Bethany, Oklahoma. It seemed White had his future all planned out early on, that was until he became involved in the rock band Three Trees during his stint in college.
“That was really fun, but [it] fizzled out in about a year,” he says. “And then after that I went solo. I started playing in Deep Ellum, just busking.”
For those who aren’t familiar with the term busking, it’s the act of playing music in a public place for voluntary donations. However, since busking takes place in open unregulated areas, it can be daunting and sometimes dangerous, especially if you are in certain areas of certain cities.
No longer focused on his studies in school, White decided to take the path less traveled on the fabled musical crossroads toward stardom. However, there was one little thing holding White back from stepping forward on his own musically — he didn’t know how to play the guitar very well.
“I was 21 years old the first time I picked up a six-string,” he says with a sheepish grin. White admits he was a little rough around the edges when he first started playing guitar 7 years ago but quickly gained some momentum after busking six hours a day in the famed North Texas music hub of Deep Ellum for over a year. The Deep Ellum area is no cake walk, especially after dark. But White never paid any attention to riff raff; he was focused on a singular goal.
“I think it came natural, but I also wanted to be really good,” he says. “I was willing to play six hours a day to get there.”
Committed to paying his dues, White says, he consciously avoided playing anyone else’s music, honing his own sound right of out the gate.
“I went original as soon as I got a guitar, only because I never wanted to fall into the habit of playing other people's music,” he says. “It was like a common theme that I saw with the guitar players that when they learned how to play, they would play people's songs. And I just didn't want to do that, especially starting as a songwriter. I wasn't playing guitar at first, but I was writing my own songs all along.”
Besides putting pen to paper, White says he also learned the important craft of connecting with his audience, a skill he’s become accustom to after several years’ worth of live performances.
“I'm having to learn in real time and try to impress in real time. So, it was a really interesting path, I guess. But it felt all right. It was like, this is what I'm supposed to do. I'm learning. And that's just what it is,” he says.
The first guitar driven song White says he created was a Stevie Ray Vaughn-style lament titled “I Told My Girl.” Not long after White began to perform his own music to the passersby on the streets of Dallas, he was invited to go on the road with American rapper and singer Mod Sun.
“This is the moment I realized the music thing was happening,” he says. White explained Mod Sun asked him to join a one month 25 city tour that would expose the young artist to what life on the road was all about.
Crystal Wise
Constance White, Angel White's mother, has always been a supporter of her son's vision to be a musician. This is a photo of the two backstage at Tannahill's.
“I didn't even have any music out at the time. I didn't even have any music recorded. And then two weeks before I wrote a four-song ep that dropped a day before the tour started, I was traveling to 25 cities to perform.”
Not one to take this opportunity lightly, White says he made as many contacts as he could during this fast-paced tour. Also, in order for him to stay grounded on his fundamentals, White explained that he would busk outside of the shows he was playing as a way of connecting with the audience who didn’t realize who he was until the lights would go up.
“My thing is to be able to humanize the interactions,” he says. "I think this is one of the biggest things you could do because it just creates a connection that's beyond the art. It creates a connection that's beyond everything.”
White says the reaction from the crowd realizing he was just outside playing an acoustic set to them face-to-face was the ultimate icebreaker. However, tonight is a little bit different. In five minutes, this North Texas native will be filling in the headlining spot at Tannahill’s only forty minutes from where he grew up.
However, to say White’s current sound is a Lone Star concoction all his own wouldn’t be accurate. On the road, backing White up is his current band which consists of Nick Milligan on drums, Amanda Jarman on bass, and William Hooper on lead guitar. The back and forth between Hooper and White is definitely on par with watching legends like Mick Jagger and Keith Richard’s personas interact on stage. The two feed off of each other’s energy, adding to an already vivacious showcase that includes high energy rompers and slow dance-inducing ballads.
Crystal Wise
When asked where his song ideas come from, White says, “That’s easy … from real life.”
One such song that struck a note of harmony amongst the crowd of attendees at Tannahill’s is White’s ode to a woman who was like a grandmother to him, “Red Blanket.”
“I was probably like six years old, and it was a blanket that I had all the time.” White says. “She passed away two years ago in December. But just the idea that keepsakes keep people alive was the reason behind the lyrics.”
What gives White some solace when he sings this ode is that the woman who gave him that red blanket so many years ago had a chance to see him perform before she passed away.
“She didn’t see me where I’m at now, but she saw me perform on stage, and I’m still very much in that same space. I’m still hungry but also humbled to know where I come from and where I’m going.”
