Tag Archives: Texas music
Ken Burns’ New Documentary Builds a Bigger Tent for Country Music
Co-opted by whites, country music was largely shaped by black and immigrant musicians.
As a filmmaker, Ken Burns sees himself as a uniter and not a divider—an admirable endeavor in these polarized times, but not always a successful one. His 2017...Read More
The Highwomen Are the Superbly Talented, Feminist Supergroup Country Music Needs
On a stunning self-titled album released this week, the four musicians—two of whom are Texans—explore domesticity, motherhood, love, and loss.
In 1973, fresh from recording her raw, woman-to-woman plea to spare her relationship, Dolly Parton mixed “Jolene” in Nashville’s RCA Studio A. She wouldn...Read More
A Sweeping History of Texas Blues Celebrates Little-Known Musicians
More than 50 years in the making, The Blues Come to Texas is an encyclopedic tome stuffed with surprising trivia.
I have a faded copy of the July|August 1965 issue of the magazine Blues Unlimited, which includes an essay, “Working on the Project – T for Texas; T for Toi...Read More
The Texas Miracle #9: What is Texas Country Music?
Austin singer-songwriter and 'Texas country sweetheart' Kelly Willis gives us a lesson in Lone Star twang.
On the podcast, Austin's Kelly Willis gives us a lesson in Texas country, and we'll meet a prof charging back against that racist Mex-Am studies textbook....Read More
Dance Hall Doc Takes Filmgoers to ‘Honky Tonk Heaven’
The film touches on the effects of Austin's economic boom, but focuses on the music that made the Broken Spoke famous.
A music documentary that touches on the effects of Austin's economic boom, 'Honky Tonk Heaven' is historical and cultural preservation through film....Read More
The Great Mellowing
God, Willie Nelson, and the increasingly thinkable pipe dream of marijuana reform.
Thanks to God and Willie Nelson, marijuana reform is an increasingly thinkable pipe dream....Read More
‘I’ve Been There’
Grady Gaines and Houston’s Rock and Roll Roots
In I’ve Been Out There: On the Road with Legends of Rock ‘n’ Roll, saxophone legend Grady Gaines tells the story of his musical journey that stretc...Read More
The Oxford American Turns to Texas Music
The magazine’s companion anthology album—always an eclectically curated highlight of the Oxford American's annual music issues, of which the current iterat...Read More
Powerful Medicine
The power of music is a strange and wonderful thing: It can make you smile, dance and cry, and it can transport you back in time. One of my favorite buzzes is p...Read More
