The people of Texas haven’t forgotten about the tragic flooding in the Hill Country on July 4th, and continue to show up for their fellow neighbors, with no fatigue displayed.
“We’re Only Human” captures an acclaimed songwriter evolving with his music, and challenging an audience to evolve with him.
The music community is stepping up big time to make sure the folks affected by the flooding in central Texas and the Hill Country are made whole, and those who lost loved ones are enveloped by the rest of community.
The modern King of Outlaw Country isn’t one for lounging around for a few years in between albums. After releasing a new studio album and a Lefty Frizzell tribute in 2024, Cody Jinks will release his latest album called “In My Blood.”
Instead of trying to write songs that compel the audience to look at themselves, “We’re Only Human” finds Hayes turning the gaze back onto himself in an introspective manner.
Cotton Fest boasts being “The biggest BYOB country music festival in west Texas,” and who’s gonna argue or check the math with a lineup like that? Coeds from Tech, roughnecks from The Patch, and everyone in-between will be there.
The name will probably be familiar to independent country fans. Whether you’ve seen it ascribed as TJ McFarland, or his stage name Tennessee Jet, he’s a primary member of the Cody Jinks songwriting collective.
“They were good until they got sober” is often the dumb offering from social media dunces when some musician goes sober. But contrary to this common misconception, sometimes sobriety brings the best out in an artist.
When Ringo Starr recently announced that he was releasing a country album, some rolled their eyes. But it happens to be Ringo’s relationship with country goes much deeper than some might expect.
There was country music before ‘Viva Terlingua,’ and then there was country music after it. It’s legacy is so rich, deep, and stratified across a host of important and influential lines, it’s like its own institution.
It’s been a week for the Turnpike Troubadours, that’s for sure. But they aren’t done yet, announcing a new tour and album pre-orders.
Eric Church is a fan of country music’s “Outsiders” if you will. That is why for his “Outsiders Revival” tour, Church will be reviving the practice of featuring some of the cooler folks in country music as opposed to whatever boilerplate star the industry is trying to shove down the public’s throats at the moment.
There are few places more synonymous with country music in Texas than Luckenbach, and there are few places more synonymous with an individual artist than Luckenbach is with Jerry Jeff Walker. When Walker recorded his album Viva Terlingua! in Luckenbach’s legendary dance hall.
Held on the same grounds as the massive Rocklahoma gathering, Born & Raised boasted one of the best lineups all year on an incredibly crowded weekend. Just the Friday night lineup alone was worth the effort, with some of the best songwriters and performers in all of country music booked one after another.
It is a bittersweet time this Labor Day weekend down in Texas, and specifically at the legendary Floore’s Country Store in Helotes where Robert Earl Keen is wrapping up 41 years of touring with three final shows. Eric Church, and rodeo legend Phil Lyne showed up to help.
As reported by Saving Country Music in July, a new 6-part, 12-hour documentary named ‘They Called Us Outlaws: Cosmic Cowboys, Honky Tonk Heroes, and the Rise of Renegade Troubadours’ is on the way, featuring over 90 interviews and 75 live performances, with Jessi Colter executive producing.
Country music is country music, and the best definition of what country music is, is that you know it when you hear it. It’s self-evident. But the genre has birthed many subgenres, many stylistic movements over the years, and at times has seen a splintering and Balkanization.
The bigger issue here is that people just want more Tyler Childers, and you can’t blame them for that. If he was playing two hours sets on his own tour, most everyone would be leaving satisfied. But he’s not, even though it feels like he should be.
An oral history on the life of songwriting legend Billy Joe Shaver will be released on July 21st. Called ‘Live Forever: The Songwriting Legacy of Billy Joe Shaver,’ it is about Shaver’s life and songs told through his peers, friends, and disciples. Authored by Courtney S. Lennon…
This album will have you blowing speaker cones and doing air guitar poses on coffee tables—sideways looks from your significant other be damned. I don’t know what’s gotten into Ray Wylie Hubbard, but this album is anything but retread. It’s a grizzly ol’ middle finger to bad music.
Jerry Jeff Walker died on October 23rd, 2020, but not before becoming a folk hero from the song “Mr. Bojangles,” and helping to set up the conditions in Austin, TX that would ultimately make it the Live Music Capital of the World, and an alternative to Nashville.
What an amazing time in music we live in where you can compile a playlist of excellent new songs from living legends like Willie Nelson and Ray Wylie Hubbard, and place them right beside new songs from great contemporary artists like Ian Noe and Kaitlin Butts.
If you’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to catch the Turnpike Troubadours on their reunion tour and got locked out of the first round of shows due to the crazy run on tickets, the opportunities to see them live just got a lot more lucrative.
Well if it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it. And with the extended Rolodex of influences and acolytes Ray Wylie Hubbard has assembled, why not release a sequel? That’s what Ray Wylie will do on March 18th, 2022 with another list of excellent collaborators.