At the age of 75, country music legend Merle Haggard is unafraid. Whether the topic is the environment, immigration concerns or the state of country music in the new millennium, Haggard hardly needs an invitation to share his opinions. During the course of a half hour or so, Haggard easily…
A couple of weeks ago, we told you how Red Dirt stud Stoney LaRue decided to follow other big names and host a charity golf and poker tourney in Grapevine, with the help of some his famous friends from the world of sports and music. That specific event, which benefited…
Visit any area honky-tonk or college-town pizza joint and ask five people what “Texas country” or “Texas music” is. Chances are, you’ll get two thoughtful answers describing the way in which the artists that fall under the nebulously defined category are linked by spirit more than sonic similarities, one blank…
If gambling hasn’t violently torn your family apart, then a day at the races could be a great way to entertain Dad on the day in which we gladly ignore the living room screaming matches of our adolescence and his ambivalence towards our allegedly frivolous dreams of simply wanting to…
This Father’s Day, there are a couple suitable options for a dutiful son or daughter to get Dad to get a little buzzed before he opens another round of ties from Kohl’s. For $40 a person,The Dallas Bites! Summer Beer and Burger Tour will provide a bus full of Deep…
Gillian Welch Majestic Theatre Saturday, June 9 In this week’s paper, Gillian Welch let us know what the live show might be like, when she described her recording process to us. “My favorite sound on Earth is the sound of voices and instruments combining in the air. We let it…
The Texas Rangers of 2012 have proven how long a 162-game baseball season can truly feel, even when the lengthiest season in sports (at least for the sports we care about) is less than half-complete. After getting off to the best start of any team, things have leveled off. One…
Now that 2011’s The Harrow & the Harvest has been out for close to a year, questions about a new Gillian Welch album abound. But one also must consider that she and her musical mate David Rawlings placed an eight-year gap between that album and 2003’s Soul Journey. Welch is…
The country music community of Texas and Oklahoma has been a fantastic supporter of children and their families battling various medical issues. Over the past few years, Ft. Worth DJ Justin Frazell has been a driving force behind the all-star Pickin’ for Preemies series of Labor Day concerts, with proceeds…
Every few years there’s a new it girl, and Best Coast’s leader, Bethany Cosentino, is one of them. That’s not to say the talented California native, who has a new line of clothing to her name, is an empty vessel who just happens to play guitar. Cosentino and her multi-instrumental…
Turnpike Troubadours Granada Theater Friday, May 25 Friday night, Oklahoma’s Turnpike Troubadours and El Paso quarter the Dirty River Boys turned in a ferocious one-two punch that floored not only the packed lower level of the Granada Theater, but proved the newest generation of country and roots music is solid,…
While there’s certainly an eclectic mix at this weekend’s third annual Homegrown Festival, you’ll want to keep an eye on Robert Ellis. The Houston musician has been kicking around for a couple of years, but his 2010 New West debut, Photographs, provided the lengthy-maned Ellis a national profile, and his…
Harmony is great. Singing is great too. People with beautiful vocal instruments are great. But the idea of grown men singing together in an a capella group doesn’t seem so great. It seems pretty off-putting, what with all the smiling and snapping that seem to be mandatory. Perhaps the names…
Country icon George Jones famously asked “Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes” back in 1985. For the most part, modern Top 40 country isn’t terribly interested in the footwear of elder greats, given the way radio playlists have tossed aside so many aging legends over the past 20 years or so…
Thanks to television and film adaptations, the phrase “Friday night lights” has become part of the pop-culture vernacular. Of course, before the movie and the successful series was the best-selling book from 1990, and before the book there was its author, Buzz Bissinger. In his latest book, Father’s Day, the…
In recent months, the North Texas country community has produced some solid albums, and future months will witness the release of anticipated records from Somebody’s Darling, Grant Jones and Ronnie Fauss. While vets like Eleven Hundred Springs, Tejas Brothers, the King Bucks, Nate Kipp and Mo Robson continue to release…
The Canadian’s sure know how to turn in some decent sketch comedy, eh? For the many American comedy fans who have missed it on PBS, The Red Green Show is a treasure trove waiting to be unlocked. Veteran actor Steve Smith, who plays the titular character, comes off as a…
The title of Dallas-area resident’s Jennifer Porter Kennard’s play, A Big Girl’s Guide To Love, wouldn’t have exactly been an appealing name had her production been a plain, old how-to book. Come on, do most of us, regardless of body mass, really need any help dealing with bad dates, nosy…
For almost as long as country music has lived as a genre, the argument about what makes a song, album, singer or group “country” has existed. Depending on who you ask, over time, and especially in the past couple of decades, country music has either splintered into dozens of wildly…
If honesty and authenticity is required for art to truly blossom, then Nicole Stewart’s Oral Fixation series of open-chested spoken-word performances from folks sharing personal, sad and humorous stories is indeed a fully formed rose. Operating off a single phrase, a handful of brave and entertaining participants take the stage…
Last year’s inaugural North Texas Beer Festival showed signs of an event with the right idea and a good heart, but still wasn’t quite sure how to hit one out of the park. The fest offered long lines for brew samples in a section of the Plano Centre that seemed…
It’s hard to gauge how influential an album truly is. The Meat Puppets’ 1984 LP, Meat Puppets II, is often cited by musicians as a seminal work, released during the halcyon days of SST. It’s a ragged masterwork of country and rockabilly-infused punk, which, at the time of its release,…
