Imagine a Texas music scene without Gruene Hall. It’s difficult to impossible to do. And if it wasn’t for Pat Molak discovering the ruins of an old town just north of New Braunfels, and making it his life’s purpose to preserve it.
It’s in the Grammy Hall of Fame. It’s in The Library of Congress. It sold Gold. It sold Platinum. Chet Flippo once said it was one of the most important albums that ever came out of Nashville. “Will The Circle Be Unbroken…”
From folk rock at their inception, to bluegrass revivalists in the ’70s, to country radio hitmakers in the ’80s, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band have just about done it all, and in a way that has been revered and wildly influential throughout music.
Jimmy Buffet wasn’t just a musician. He was the embodiment of resetting your mood, of centering the right priorities in life, and of making sure you don’t waste your time on Earth by making sure you budget time for wasting.
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.
The Texas Hill Country outside of Austin is filled with the authentic sounds of Texas country music. It also happens to be filled with a good handful of rare grasshopper species that researchers are just discovering.
It is the end of an era for the Steve Earle’s legendary backing band The Dukes. The husband and wife duo of lead guitar player Chris Masterson and fiddle/mandolin player Eleanor Whitmore have decided to depart the band. The duo also fronts their own band called The Mastersons.
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.
They love to say that in Texas, the women are more beautiful, and the beer is colder. I’m not sure that can be scientifically proven. But there is something that is most certainly palpable—though in many ways indefinable—that does make the musical moments down in Texas feel significantly more meaningful.
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.
George Strait doesn’t make many public appearances these days after officially retiring from the road. But he’ll be making a “special appearance” at the inaugural Legends of Music Row Festival set to transpire October 13-15 in Key West, Florida at the Coffee Butler Amphitheater.
A new country music documentary is on the way, courtesy of the Country Music Hall of Fame and executive producer Jessi Colter. Delving deep into the Outlaw era of country music like never before, They Called Us Outlaws will be a six-part series spanning 12 total hours.
A new development, distillery, and whiskey brand moving into the area right outside of the Hill Country town of Fredericksburg offers the potential to threaten that peaceful state of mind Luckenbach, TX has been able to preserve for over 50 years.
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.
There are just some places that are better suited for visiting at certain times of the year—where the magic and the moments are enhanced. The legendary Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, TX, and the greater Gruene historic district is definitely one of those destinations.
Another guy that paid all the dues and left a crater of an impact, even though he never hit the big time has passed onto that honky tonk in the sky. His name was Chris Wall, and even if you’ve never heard of him or his music, you’ve certainly heard his influence in many of your favorite artists.
This new album is a combination of simple compositions that convey sweet little vignettes from Texas life, and deep reverberative works and leave one shaken to the core from the impact of their stories. This combination makes Vincent Neil Emerson easy to warm to, but lasting in effect.
Legendary songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker passed away on October 23rd, 2020 due to throat Cancer, but never got a proper send off due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The event sold out within minutes of being announced, but if you’re a die hard Jerry Jeff fan and still want to participate, you can.
As bad as 2020 has been for just about everything, believe it or not, country music got it worse than just about every other segment of music, entertainment, sports, etc. when it came to both the amount, and the major names that passed away in the last 12 months.
Like so many other mainstay music institutions in 2020, PBS’s Austin City Limits program has been upended by the COVID-19 pandemic, and been forced to scale back tapings significantly for the next year. However, there are some new shows that will be moving forward, and a tribute.
Among many other criticisms being lobbed at the 2020 CMA Awards broadcast on Wednesday (11-11), the lack of an In Memoriam segment, and specifically overlooking major deaths in country music such as John Prine, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Billy Joe Shaver have quite a few hopping mad.
It’s been a hard few weeks down in Texas and beyond as Texas music and Outlaw country have lost three titans of the golden era, with Johnny Bush, Jerry Jeff, Walker, and now Billy Joe Shaver all passing away in rapid succession. It has left the country music world reeling in an already unprecedented year.
Though we’ll never forget, it will be impossible to not remember all those good times Jerry Jeff afforded us, and feel a rush of incredible sadness proportionate to the impact Jerry Jeff Walker had on music, and people, and places, which was infinite.
From contributing one of the most important folk songs of the American songbook in history, to becoming a seminal member of the Austin, TX music scene and founding father of Texas country music, there is no comparing, and no replacing the impact of performer, songwriter, musical icon, and gonzo musician Jerry Jeff Walker.