Beloved Texas Musician and Songwriter Brian Burns Has Died
Texas music songwriter, musician, educator, and historian Brian Burns has passed away. Though you might not recall the name, many of your favorite musicians from Texas most certainly do and did, and saw Brian Burns as a close friend and musical peer. As a performer and musician for over 40 years, he left his footprint on Texas music, and made sure the legacy of Texas music was preserved and paid forward.
Brian Burns was originally from Waco where he received a guitar and drum kit at an early age. Though he would go on to be best known as a singer and a songwriter, it was as a drummer where he got his start in music. He auditioned for a band out of Temple, TX eventually called Freewheelin’ in 1979 when he was just 16, and was hired as the drummer. The band would travel all around the United States playing live shows specializing in country music from Texas. Even early on, Brian Burns traveled with a record player and vinyl collection, exposing his fellow band mates to the music of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Jerry Jeff Walker, and other Texas music mainstays.
When the wheels finally fell off of Freewheelin’, Brian Burns went on to front and participate in numerous other Texas country bands that would play the local dance halls around home, and tour nationally when they could. Burns also played in the house bands of Willie Nelson’s 4th of July Picnic and Farm Aid presentations in the ’80s. This is also when he started writing songs for others, and by the early ’90s, had transitioned more to a troubadour-style performer, performing acoustic solo or with a small band.
Nearly 20 years into his career, Brian Burns released his debut album called Highways, Heartaches, & Honky-Tonks in 1997, and it put him on the map as a solo performer. He followed this up with 1999’s Angels & Outlaws. It’s opening song “Welcome To Texas (Now Don’t Forget To Go Back Home)” became a regional hit, and one of Brian’s signature songs. He’d do himself even one better with his 2001 album The Eagle & The Snake: Songs Of The Texians. Steeped in Texas lore with long story songs, it was crowned by another song that would become synonymous with Brian Burns and Texas, “I’ve Been Everywhere (In Texas)”—a Texas take on the country standard.
“I’ve Been Everywhere (In Texas)” would go on to be featured in the soundtrack of the 2002 motion picture Grand Champion starring George Strait, and featuring other country stars along with Bruce Willis and Julia Roberts. The kids-based family film helped Brian Burns transition into the next pursuit of his career, which was an educational concert presentation called Once Upon A Time In Texas. Through the program, Burns taught elementary and middle school students about Texas history in a musical format.
Subsequently, Brian Burns released further records Heavy Weather (2004), Border Radio (2006), and American Junkyard (2009), resulting in numerous regional radio hits in Texas. But as time went on, Brian Burns found it harder and harder to keep up with the changing trends in music, both soncially and technologically with streaming. So in 2017, he retired from music to focus more on graphic design, photography, and website production.
As an example of how revered Brian Burns was by his fellow Texas songwriters, Guy Clark sang “Like a Coat from the Cold” at his wedding to his wife Veronica, according to his former Freewheelin’ band mate Ronnie Brandt. It was Veronica who posted on July 6th,
“On July 4, 2026 I lost my husband, confidant, best friend, and the sweetest boy ever. Brian was Dad to Ryan, Jessica, and Amanda. He was Papa to Cooper, Eleanor, Carter, and Olivia. Brian was intelligent, a constant searcher of knowledge, creative, talented, funny, quick witted, complicated and I loved it all. I am devastated and right now I can not imagine being on this life journey without him. It would have been 30 years of marriage this November. As Brian has said many times when someone he admired, cared about, or loved left this earth – Godspeed. Brian, I hope you have found peace, my love.”
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