T.D.BELL & ERBIE BOWSER

     Bell left, Bowser,right 

T.D. Bell (Guitar, Vocals)

Erbie Bowser (Piano, Vocals)

Mel Davis (Harmonica)

Len Nichols (Bass)

W.C. Clark (Bass) tr.5,8,12

George Rains (Drums)

Mark Kazanoff, Jon Smith, Charlie Jacobs (Saxophone)

Tyler Dee Bell (December 26, 1922 – January 9, 1999), known as T. D. Bell, was an American blues guitarist.

Bell was born in Belltown, Lee County, Texas. He played some banjo as a child, but played little guitar until after he left the army at the end of World War II. He was heavily influenced by T-Bone Walker and acquired the nickname "Little T-Bone" when he started playing in clubs in the Rockdale area in the late 1940s, alongside Roosevelt "Grey Ghost" Williams. In 1949, club owner Johnny Adams persuaded him to give up his job in an aluminum plant to work as a full-time musician in Austin. He became a successful live performer, often partnering pianist Erbie Bowser; fronting his own band the Cadillacs which toured around the region; and supporting visiting musicians such as B. B. King, Bobby Bland, and T-Bone Walker.

He was a mainstay of the Austin music scene through the 1950s and 1960s, before retiring in the early 1970s and setting up his own trucking business. In the late 1980s he began performing again, and in 1987 formed the Blues Specialists with Bowser. The pair recorded a 1992 album, It's About Time, which was nominated for a W. C. Handy Award, and performed together at Carnegie Hall in 1994. Bell continued to play at festivals and in clubs with the Blues Specialists after Bowser's death in 1995.

Bell was diagnosed with cancer in December 1998, and died in hospital in Austin the following month.

Erbie Bowser (May 5, 1918 – August 15, 1995) was an American blues pianist and singer.

Bowser was born in Dallas, moving with his parents to Palestine, Texas as a child. He grew up in a musical family, and learned piano, joining the North Carolina Cotton Pickers Review in his teens. On leaving school he joined the Sunset Royal Entertainers and toured Texas, before enlisting in 1942 and joining the military in Europe and north Africa. He was a member of the Special Services Band, and played USO shows. After returning to Texas, he worked in construction and for two years attended Jarvis Christian College in Hawkins. Around 1949 he married and moved to Odessa, Texas, where he worked for a drilling company. There, he formed a musical partnership with guitarist T. D. Bell, and the pair performed together at clubs in west Texas and New Mexico.

Bowser moved to Austin in the mid-1950s, and played in local bands. When Bell also moved to the city around 1960, the pair resumed playing together at clubs, notably the Victory Grill, and joined with other local musicians including Roosevelt "Grey Ghost" Williams to form the Blues Specialists. The group performed regularly in and around Austin through the 1960s and 1970s.[2] Bowser "incorporated big band, barrelhouse, and Southern boogie-woogie into a very distinctive sound." After a break of a few years, Bowser and Bell resumed playing together, and recorded an album, It's About Time, in 1991. The album was nominated for a W. C. Handy Award. Both as a solo performer and with Bell, Bowser then began appearing at blues festival, and at Carnegie Hall, and reconvened the Blues Specialists for regular club performances.

Bowser died of cancer in Austin in 1995.