"You can’t find Vernon Trumbull with an algorithm,” Vernon posits as I climb into the passenger seat of his Ford Bronco II. He sits in the cockpit donning black aviators, reflecting the Houston sun at anyone bold enough to look him in the eyes. Vernon’s beard is red as the sunset now chasing us. He’s picked me up from the airport to teach me a thing or two about Real American Music over the course of the weekend.  

Trumbull drives at a leisurely pace, like a man who knows his destination will wait for him. The humid Houston air whips through the Bronco’s open windows. Vernon takes a deep breath of it and bellows a new tune, his voice accompanied by the din of the interstate: “You can’t be bad when you’re at home with me.” Vernon sings the way he drives, giving each turn of phrase the reverence one might reserve for a religious reading.

Home is wherever Vernon lays his stetson. He’s just come from playing a string of shows that brought him back to Houston from Trumbull County, Ohio, which his forbears founded.

Auspiciously, it was Neil Young’s Harvest that first Vernon sang while working on the family farm, effortlessly mimicking Young’s tenor and garnering an appreciation for the well-timed swell of a pedalsteel guitar. Harvest was recorded on a farm with a small cadre of session musicians—Vernon would go on to replicate this method, recording Vernon Trumbull & His Kinsmen on a farm outside of Waco, Texas, accompanied by three legendary Texas musicians.

Given the size of his stage presence and physical commitment to the performance, the unseasoned observer might call him Elvis. “Elvis from Hell” is a worthier epithet, to borrow a phrase from Kid Congo Powers. Unlike the King, this rockabilly royal wouldn’t set foot in a church except to use its acoustics on a record. 

Any deity would cherish his devotion, but Vernon isn’t one to praise a god who won’t sing back.

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