Thomas Csorba’s new album, Tender Country, is a tip of the hat to a gentler time in country music, when songs about family life and nostalgia were easier to find on the radio dial.

For this album, his fourth, Csorba (pronounced Chor-ba) drew songwriting inspiration close to home – specifically his wife and two young sons. Raised in Houston, Csorba naturally found an early affinity for Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, and Don Williams, all of whom came up in that city’s live music scene. In 2019, Csorba graduated with an English degree from Baylor University in Waco, Texas. It’s no surprise that his literary leanings are evident in his lyrics, while his low-key vocals fit right in with his musical heroes.

“I’m obsessed with Don Williams, and what I love about Don is that it sounds like he’s sitting down on every recording, every vocal delivery,” Csorba says. “The thought and spirit behind this album was like, ‘Let’s make a record like those Don Williams records that I want to listen to when I’m doing laundry.’ I’m not in the business of making ‘exciting music,’ or what the world says is exciting. What’s exciting to me is something disarming and something thoughtful.”

Now based in Dallas, Csorba will hit the road later this summer with fellow Texas artist David Ramirez. In the meantime, calling in from a family vacation in Colorado, Csorba chatted with Good Country about his responsibility to share good music with his kids, the revelation of Tony Rice, and his long-held Grand Ole Opry aspirations.

I like that kind of comfortable, relaxed feeling on this record. What was the vibe in the studio during these sessions?

Thomas Csorba: It’s funny how relaxed and comfortable it was, in contrast with how quickly we worked. Most people would think that when you’re trying to record 10 songs in two days it’d be pretty uptight and stressful, but the goal was really like, “Hey, I got two extra days, let’s go record whatever we can.” Because I felt so comfortable with the guys, because I felt so comfortable in the studio, and because the players are so damn good, I was able to say, “Hey, here’s the next song.” Everybody charts it and I’m like, “All right, you want to try it?” And by the third take, it’s like, “All right, that feels good.”

Obviously, we live in a world of perfect and auto-tune and Melodyne and AI integration into Pro Tools. And, for better, for worse, I can’t understand how and why. I just can’t see myself getting into that. I don’t have the time or energy, so I’d much rather turn and burn with guys in the band, overdub a couple things, and what comes out of it is like, “Oh, this feels nice.”

I was curious about “Homemade Margaritas,” because to me it sounds like the spirit of Guy Clark and “Homegrown Tomatoes.” Was he an influence on you?

Yeah, absolutely. When I was a kid, my mom sang Willie Nelson songs to me. The mother-son dance at my wedding was “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.” She’s a Texas gal and loved Jerry Jeff Walker and Willie and all those guys. She knew about Guy, but my older brother, Will, who’s a phenomenal old-time player, who’s wicked smart and wicked talented – he’s the kind of guy that’s frustrated with me and doesn’t think I’m cool because I have words in my songs. He’s quite the purist, but he was the one who introduced me to Townes Van Zandt’s music when I was 14 or 15 years old. And my parents are rolling their eyes, thinking the older brother’s corrupting Thomas.

I fell in love with Townes and my brother was like, “Great, if you like Townes, you’ve gotta like Guy and Blaze Foley and Rodney Crowell.” Then I went down that deep dive and his response to that, he just kind of walked through with me and said, “If you like all these guys, and if Townes is your favorite and Guy is your favorite, you’ve got to like the people they were obsessed with.” So, Lightnin’ Hopkins and Blind Willie McTell, and this kind of lineage.

I don’t know how relevant this is, but the big through-line there is that everything I love, in some way, comes from the bedrock that is Black American music. Guy certainly embodies that, Townes certainly embodies that. Guy was a big influence, and Texas Cookin’ is one of my favorite records of all time. Especially on “Homemade Margaritas,” I’m like, “Man, let’s do something fun like that.” … Anything I can do as a songwriter to have somebody listen to my record and be like, “Oh, this reminds me of Texas Cookin’,” mission accomplished in my book.

Since Good Country is on the Bluegrass Situation, I do have to ask about “Tony Rice & Beans.”

Hell yeah! I wrote that song with Matt Tedder. He plays guitar for me and he’s a phenomenal thumbpicker. He can play Western swing stuff. He played all over my record, has toured with me, and has been a dear friend for ages now. Matt knows the songbook. If I get booked for a private gig, and I know I’m gonna have to play covers, I bring Matt because he knows every word to every Merle Haggard song, and I can just sit there in a cowboy hat and strum.

He can tell where I am musically and what I want musically and point me in the right direction. All that to say, over the past 10 years, especially, a lot of our heroes from the ‘70s, who made those recordings that I love, have passed away. Jerry Jeff and Merle and obviously Tony Rice. For half of these folks, like in memoriam, it’s like, “I’m going to go listen to Jerry Jeff today,” in honor of Jerry Jeff, and I know exactly what deep cut I want to listen to.

Other people of that era have passed away, and I’ve been like, “Man, I know ‘Church Street Blues,’ but why have I not done the deep dive?” That was Tony Rice for me. When he passed, I did the deep dive, and Matt was there to hold my hand and point me to the right records and tell me what to listen for, because I’m much less musically advanced, as a way to put it. So, he pointed me through those records and I just fell in love. It made me want to start trying to practice guitar again, and get better flat-picking, which I am still a beginner at.

I think it’s because I was so new to the idea of Tony Rice that I was like, “Why is there no song called ‘Tony Rice & Beans’?” So, Matt and I wrote that tune and tried to shoehorn about as many references from the country and American songbook as we could. In Matt’s favorite line, the fact that we fit “The mule and the grasshopper are eating ice cream” from “Stay All Night, Stay a Little Longer,” from Bob Wills and Willie… It’s like, “What the hell does that line mean?” I don’t know, but there it is in my song, too.

Is it fair to say that one of the obligations of fatherhood is introducing your kids to good music?

Oh, totally! Maybe this is hyperbole, but I’ll say it anyway: There’s no better feeling as a father than your kids sitting in the back seat and saying, “Dad, can we listen to ‘Working on a Building’ but the Stanley Brothers’ version?” It’s like, ‘Dude, you’re not even four. Why do I want to cry right now?” Our oldest son turns four in July, and he’s requesting Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt and the Trio records, and loves Doc Watson.

Obviously he wants annoying brain rot songs, as well. There’s this song called “Chicken Banana” that he’s obsessed with that’s just terrible. We listen to soundtrack stuff and even in movies, it’s like, “Yeah, let’s watch Robin Hood, and let me tell you about Roger Miller.” It makes it much more enjoyable for me. … I think our kids need to listen to stuff they don’t understand, and I think they need to sit there in adult conversations about music and about art that they may not understand. But they’ll sit there and they’ll absorb it.

I just think my responsibility as a parent is to put the right things in front of them and bring them alongside of where I am creatively, where I am socially, and not draw the line between what Dad listens to and “Dad music,” and what the kids listen to and what “kid music” is. Because it’s unfair to them. It’s unfair to me, too. So, that’s my spiel on kids listening to good music.

I did want to ask about “He Would’ve Loved This.” In country music, there are a lot of songs where Dad is talking about the lessons he’s learned, or saying something with wisdom, but this song has a list of action items that show love. He’s trimming the trees and checking the gravy, and so on. Who were you thinking about when you wrote that song?

I was thinking of my granddad. We called him Papa. He passed away when I was in high school. My oldest son carries his name, which is really sweet. The guy was a chain smoker since he was 12 years old, and worked drywall in Canada after he moved over from Hungary. He’s got this amazing story, and because of his history and his background, his whole spirit was kind of like, “Isn’t this awesome?” Even the little things. And that permeated through all of his life.

You know, he was certainly a crotchety old man at times, but there was a sense of gratitude that was kind of unfathomable, literally. I couldn’t understand it, even if I tried, just because of where he came from. All he wanted was to survive and start a family one day, and there he was watching me grow up and taking me to baseball practice, and trying to correct my attitude on the golf course as a 10-year-old. It’s like, the fact that he was there embodied that gratitude.

So, as my wife and I are watching our boys grow up doing all these menial, seemingly throwaway things, I have to remind myself that if Papa was here, he would be beaming with joy.

You’re not even 30 years old yet, and I know time passes fast, but do you consider yourself to be a nostalgic or sentimental person?

Yeah, I’m a “hoarder lite.” I hang on to things. On this record cycle, I’ll be transparent here, it’s like my big dream – if there’s any record I’ve put out so far, this is the one that would bring me to the Opry. I think it just fits the spirit of the history of the Opry. That’s been a dream for a long time. I’ve wanted to do that, and my manager and I talk about it, literally, every phone call.

The other day, my wife said, “I understand the historical significance, but what’s the deal? Why do you want to do the Opry so bad?” In the same way I talk about these records being handed down to my kids, I was kind of like, “I really want to have done it. I really want my kids to be like, ‘Dad played the Opry!’” Not to look cool, but mostly as a nostalgic thing, to get them to come and stand side stage, whether they understand it or not.

Those moments of nostalgia, in conjunction with the moments of nostalgia around the house, paint a really idealized, probably, but really beautiful picture of what I am up to, what I want to do, and how I want to show my kids I’m going about life.

Photo Credit: Alex Csorba