Canadian blues singer-songwriter Miss Robin Banks is returning to a familiar part of her musical history with “Lost in Austin,” a new Texas-recorded album featuring the Moeller Brothers and a cast of musicians with connections to the Austin and Dallas blues scenes.
The album will be released through Dallas Blues Society Records and is dedicated to the memory of the label’s friend and founder, Chuck Nevitt, a longtime supporter of North Texas blues musicians.
For Banks, Lost in Austin grew out of an unplanned recording session at Alnico Recording Studio in Austin with musicians she had known and worked with years earlier.
Banks went into the studio with former bandmates Drew Allain on bass and Johnny Moeller on guitar, along with Johnny’s brother, drummer Jason “Jay” Moeller. Together, Johnny and Jason are known as the Moeller Brothers.
What began without plans for an album quickly became one.
“This record wasn’t planned,” Banks said. “I had no idea it was coming until it was right up on me. There was no budget. Just a dream, a couple opportunities and some signs from the universe.”
Two days later, the musicians had recorded 10 songs, eight of them written by Banks.
Several months after the Austin sessions, Banks recorded her vocals in Canada with Shawn Kellerman, who also engineered and mastered the project. Additional musicians were brought in to complete the recordings, including keyboardist Bruce Bears, harmonica players Steve Marriner and Roly Platt and pedal steel guitarist Dale Rivard.
The sessions also brought Banks back together with Johnny Moeller more than two decades after the two performed together in Dallas. Moeller played with Banks for several years beginning around 2003, during a period when she was also working with Texas musicians including Lou Ann Barton and others.
Banks said she had long hoped to record again with Moeller.
“Chuck was an important part of the Dallas blues music scene making records and producing shows for many Dallas area artists including the Moeller Brothers and myself,” Banks said. “So we’re going back to 1999 now and since that time, even though I’ve made lots of records, I’ve always dreamed that I could get into a studio with Johnny.”
Nevitt’s connection to both Banks and the Moellers gives the Dallas Blues Society Records release an additional historical link to the North Texas blues community. Banks also dedicated the album to her late friend Debbie Dvoracek.
Banks is orignally from Canada, but made Texas her home for many years. Lost in Austin reflects those connections both in the musicians involved and in the circumstances surrounding its creation.
The project follows Banks’ previous album, “Modern Classic,” which also featured Duke Robillard and Bruce Bears. On Lost in Austin, however, the Texas connection becomes central to the record itself, bringing Banks back into a musical circle that dates to her years performing in Dallas.
Banks describes the new album less as a carefully mapped-out studio project than as the product of musicians finding themselves together in the right room at the right time.
“So here it is: Lost in Austin, my heart and soul,” Banks said. “Thanks to the musicians who took my ideas and made them even more beautiful than I could have imagined.”
The album also represents another chapter in the long relationship between the Dallas and Austin blues communities — musicians moving between the two cities, playing together in different combinations and reconnecting years later.
For Banks, that history is personal. More than 20 years after performing alongside Moeller in Dallas, Lost in Austin brings those relationships back into the studio and puts them at the center of a new record.
“This record is just another example of how dreams come true when you follow the signs and have faith in your every step on the path,” Banks said.
